Modern audiences have two easily accessible numbers from which to measure the success of a feature film. The Rotten Tomatoes score details how much people like a film, while the box office take reveals how many saw it. Neither metric is perfect. Relying on these two numbers will result in missing countless brilliant films. David Fincher’s Zodiac was an instant neo-noir classic that critics loved, and audience members needed time to warm up to.
Does anyone else feel like Zodiac came out in the 90s? The film dropped in 2007, but it’s spoken of as a genre-defining landmark, and that can’t have come out the same year as the first Michael Bay Transformers. Zodiac is David Fincher’s sixth film as director. Se7en and Fight Club were years behind him. Zodiac dropped into an unusual theatrical market and paid the price.
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David Fincher’s Zodiac was set up to fail
|
Director |
David Fincher |
|---|---|
|
Writer |
James Vanderbilt, based on Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith |
|
Cast |
Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards |
|
Release Date |
February 28, 2007 |
|
Runtime |
157 minutes |
|
Box Office |
$84.7 million |
Zodiac‘s budget is disputed. It may have been as low as $65 million or as high as $85 million. In either case, the film didn’t earn enough to make a profit. Conventional box office wisdom suggests doubling the production budget to account for marketing. That would imply Zodiac lost the studio between $45.3 million and $85.3 million. The film likely made up much of that deficit in home video sales, as Netflix streaming was new and uncommon. DVD rentals earned $6.7 million in the first week alone. Zodiac isn’t to blame for its financial failure. The film was beloved by critics the day it dropped, and most who’ve seen it consider it a classic. Fincher refused to mince words, delivering this quote to Sight and Sound in May 2007:
Even with the box office being what it is, I still think there’s an audience out there for this movie. Everyone has a different idea about marketing, but my philosophy is that if you market a movie to 16-year-old boys and don’t deliver Saw or Seven, they’re going to be the most vociferous ones coming out of the screening saying ‘This movie sucks.’ And you’re saying goodbye to the audience who would get it because they’re going to look at the ads and say, ‘I don’t want to see some slasher movie
Modern blockbusters are discussed in terms of their second-weekend dropoff. If far fewer tickets are sold the weekend after a film’s release, critics and viewers assume something has gone wrong. It’s often an indicator of poor word of mouth. Hype drove many to see the film on opening night. They told friends and colleagues it was terrible, so sales faltered the following week. Zodiac saw a decline of over 50% in its second weekend. Zodiac is an excellent film, but its marketing was all over the place. As Fincher mentioned, some American audience members felt they were sold a different movie. Since they didn’t get what they wanted, they shared poor experiences with all who would listen. The tone of the first Zodiac trailer was all over the place. It doesn’t sell the clever, cerebral nature of the script. It focuses on the horror elements, which aren’t the film’s greatest virtue. This simple lapse in judgment doomed Zodiac at the box office.
Zodiac has become a cult classic
The term cult classic vastly undersells the popularity of Zodiac. It appeared on most critics’ top ten list for the year, only falling short of No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Directors like Bong Joon-ho have named it one of their favorite films. It was nominated for every award under the sun and dubbed the 12th best film of the 21st century in a 2012 BBC poll. The failure of Zodiac is a magnificent lesson in how easy it is to push a feature into financial distress. Zodiac is intense, emotionally ruinous, and complex. It’s not going to sell out like a Marvel movie. Zodiac lost to Wild Hogs at the box office on their shared opening weekend. Wild Hogs received a 14% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes, while Zodiac earned a 90%. Quality is not a factor here.
Zodiac fell flat at the box office, but that fact would shock many fans today. The film is such an influential neo-noir outing that the idea it wouldn’t have worked out doesn’t occur to anyone. No one calls Zodiac a box office flop. If it came out today, it would likely be considered a disaster. The death of the home video market is partially to blame for the lack of leniency. The financial loss is barely a footnote in Zodiac‘s story. Box office failure is a down moment, but it can give way to a long history of cultural relevance and critical appreciation.
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