Keanu Reeves film Replicas started off 2019 with a gigantic thud..
Poorly reviewed and little-seen, the bewildering sci-fi drama has earned itself the distinction
of being the worst-performing wide release of the actor's career.
It's enough to make you say
"Whoa."
Make no mistake — Replicas is a bad movie.
With a 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes across 33 reviews after opening weekend, it's
enough to remind people of Johnny Mnemonic, Keanu Reeves' sci-fi thriller flop from 1995.
Is Replicas the worst thing Reeves has done?
It's pretty close.
On top of terrible reviews from both critics and audiences, the movie landed in thirteenth
place at the box office over its opening weekend in January, making less than 2.4 million dollars
from over 2,300 theaters.
How bad is that?
Let's put it this way — the movie made less money over that weekend than Bohemian Rhapsody
did — and that's after the Queen biopic had already been in theaters for more than
two months.
You've got to make an impression, darling."
While he doesn't always get credit for it, Keanu Reeves has always been a versatile leading
man.
He can anchor action movies and sappy romances, and thanks to the success of The Matrix, he
also has street cred when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy.
Unfortunately, he seems to have been sorely miscast as the lead of Replicas, playing a
grief-stricken mad scientist who clones his family after a fatal car accident.
He turns in a good performance, but it's not enough to carry the movie, much less sell
the character.
Several reviewers have indicated that the role would be better suited for an actor like
Nicolas Cage, who could take the crazy concept and run with it in a way that Reeves can't
match.
"I NEVER MISFILED ANYTHING!
NOT ONCE — NOT ONE TIME!!!!"
Replicas was distributed by Entertainment Studios, a company which focuses on smaller
releases like Hostiles, Chappaquiddick, and 47 Meters Down.
They're the sort of movies that you would expect to go direct to DVD or streaming — and
in the case of Replicas, that's probably what should have happened.
According to Deadline, Entertainment Studios sank at least $10.5 million into TV ads for
Replicas, which in retrospect appears to have been a major waste of money.
Instead of releasing the movie onto digital services to quietly fend for itself, the company
tried to sell it as a theater-worthy experience with a wide release, seemingly only upping
their financial risk.
After such a terrible opening weekend, it's hard to see how the movie can ever make its
money back.
"What if something horrible goes wrong?"
"Something already has."
While Replicas has its fair share of unique problems, the movie also suffers from a trend
that almost always plagues theaters during the first weeks of a year.
While there are occasionally successful exceptions, people generally don't see that many movies
in January, giving it a reputation as the worst month at the box office.
Movies released in December gross an average of over $1.5 billion combined.
But January's average box office is drastically smaller, coming in at around only $405 million.
It's a trend that's been around for a long time — people don't want to go out to see
movies after an exhausting holiday, especially when the weather tends to be bad.
When people do go out to the movies, they typically go to play catch-up, seeing the
movies they missed out on before they leave theaters for good.
Since audience turnout is so much lower in January, studios tend to use the month to
release their worst movies, making as much money as they can while the competition is
light.
Audiences have clued in to this phenomenon, and as a result, many viewers know to be suspicious
of January releases.
When a movie gets plum placement during the spring, summer, or holiday season, it's usually
a sign of a studio's confidence in the movie's quality.
When it comes out in the dead month of January, like Replicas did, it tends to suggest exactly
the opposite.
Replicas started filming in August 2016, but didn't show up in theaters until the second
weekend of 2019.
After years in the making, it landed with a thud.
What happened?
There are many reasons why a movie can end up with a big delay between shooting and release.
But a long gap is rarely an encouraging sign.
It can suggest a movie that's proving difficult to assemble in the edit, or be a sign of a
movie that's just so bad that producers have trouble finding a distributor, which previously
seemed to be the case with 2018 flops Gotti and Holmes and Watson.
A long delay doesn't guarantee a bad movie, but combined with a January release date,
it raises real warning signs — signs that in Replicas' case turned out to be totally
on point.
As big of a failure as Replicas turned out to be, the expectations for the movie were
never that high.
While it's definitely a blemish on Keanu Reeves' filmography, it's not exactly a career killer.
The only people who seem likely to suffer from Replicas bombing are the people behind
the cameras, who were responsible for the movie's incomprehensible script, flat direction,
and confusing edit.
Those people might be in trouble.
But the actors in the movie did pretty decent work, considering what they had to work with.
It's been so long since the movie was filmed, it's possible the cast has forgotten Replicas
even exists — and by the time 2019 is over, so will everybody else.