Juror No. 2: Why is Clint Eastwood's latest film being released in theaters on the sly?

Warner Bros. will offer this legal thriller with Nicholas Hoult in only 50 American theaters, with very little promotion. In 2021, Cry Macho was available on 3,967 copies!

The new film of Clint Eastwood will be released in theaters next Wednesday, but oddly enough, moviegoers hear very little about it. To the point of worrying a leading Hollywood media: Variety publishes a long paper asking: “Juror #2 could be Clint Eastwood's final film – so why is Warner Bros. Is she burying him?”

At 94, the director ofRuthless signs in fact his fortieth film behind the camera, this time without directing himself. He directs Nicholas Hoult in this legal drama: according to the trailer unveiled at the beginning of the month by the studio, he plays a young man selected to join the jury during a murder trial, but who wonders if he himself did not cause the accident for which another no one is accused. Tony Collette, Zoey Deutch, Kiefer Sutherland and JK Simmons complete the cast.

The American newspaper explains that Juror #2 will be shown to the public at the AFI Fest this Sunday, at the end of the 38th edition, then it will be released on a few copies in North America. This will be the filmmaker's fourth premiere as part of this film festival, and the film's stars are expected at the Chinese Theater, a prestigious Los Angeles cinema, to present the film. “Four days later, Warner Bros. will offer Juror #2 much less distinguished treatment”then writes Varietybefore detailing the exit strategy.

Clint Eastwood, 93, has a banana on the set of his latest film

A week in around fifty theaters… then streaming?

The studio would have in fact planned to offer Juror #2 in less than 50 cinemas in the United States, “without any plans to extend this distribution in the following weeks.” This means that the film will be visible in one or two cinemas in around twenty major American cities: a maximum of four or five in the case of New York and Los Angeles. On the film's official website, there are exactly 18 cinemas showing this new release. And in Canada, Cineplex plans to release it on 160 copies, and in only one cinema in Toronto.

By comparison, his previous achievement, Cry Machohad the right to 3,967 copies during its release weekend three years ago.

Will this limited release strategy make it eligible for the Oscars? And to release it very quickly in streaming? The source underlines in any case that it will be less offered than recently acclaimed indie films, such asAnoraby Sean Baker, or The Brutalistby Brady Corbet.

“Juror #2 will also be released in the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany, with full support from Warner Bros.'”then writes Varietybut here too, it is clear that its promotion is minimal. Except for the trailer released in theaters for a little less than a month – which in itself is very short for a Hollywood production – and a few posts on social networks, we hear little about Clint Eastwood's new film. While it generally enjoys great success in theaters.

As a director, Eastwood has crossed 3 million admissions with us five times, thanks to Gran Torino (2009), Million Dollar Baby (2005), A perfect world (1993), American Sniper (2015) and Invictus (2010). Nine other of his productions are millionaires in France. Certainly, his previous film, Cry Macho -proposed on 560 copies, which should be equivalent to the programming of Juror n°2- recorded fewer than 200,000 countermarks in 2021, but The Richard Jewell Case approached 800,000 tickets a year before and The Mule of 2 million, in 2019.

A disrupted film industry
Variety also looks back on the successes and failures of Clint Eastwood at the box office and explains that Warner would not want to communicate on the scores of Juror #2 at startup. A decision “atypical” in Hollywood, even though it's already happened. Earlier this year, for example, Disney refused to provide the results of The Woman and the Seaa biopic of a swimmer played by Daisy Ridley, which was offered in a few theaters and scheduled for Disney+ just two weeks after its release in cinemas.

The article then recalls that Clint Eastwood's last big success in the United States dates back ten years: American Sniper was the biggest local success of 2014, with $350 million in domestic revenue, and nearly 600 in total. Since then, only Sully And The Mule have crossed the 100 million mark in the US.

His most recent films have suffered the full brunt of the consequences of the COVID epidemic, the kind of adult dramas conceived by Clint finding less and less of an audience in the United States – in another genre, the western, Kevin Costner for example experienced a flop in theaters this year with its first part of Horizon, but good results in VOD. Cry Macho thus earned 16 million dollars worldwide, for a budget of 33, but it was released in cinemas and in streaming (on HBO Max) at the same time, a strategy applied by Warner Bros. on all of its productions, in 2021.

On the rewards side, American Sniper had been nominated six times for the Oscars, in 2015, and since then only two mentions have been made for Eastwood's films: best sound editing for Sullyin 2017, and best supporting actress for Kathy Bates, in 2020, thanks to Richard Jewell case. In previous decades, however, the filmmaker received numerous prestigious awards, including the Oscar for Best Film and Best Director for Ruthless And Million Dollar Babyfilms which also allowed its actors to be honored.

A final film initially planned for streaming

The American media finally reminds that if the latest film by an acclaimed filmmaker such as Clint Eastwood should be an event, Juror #2 comes a long way. During his announcement, the boss of Warner/Discovery, David Zaslav, counted release it directly in streamingconsidering that Clint “did not deserve favor”, despite his long loyalty to the studio.

Producers Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca eventually changed his mind, as did the film's limited budget of around $30 million. “At present, the studio appears to have little confidence in the potential commercial success of this film, regret Variety. A source close to the studio tells us that the decision to release Juror #2 in theaters would represent a gesture of gratitude to Eastwood, who brought the company millions of dollars in revenue and numerous awards.” A week in 50 American theaters seems, however, a weak gift for “this icon of the film industry, who remained so loyal to his studio for decades“, sadly concludes the Hollywood magazine.

Clint Eastwood: “I don't see myself as people see me, and certainly not as a legend”