{"id":905206,"date":"2026-09-25T17:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T17:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905206\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T17:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T17:14:18","slug":"willem-dafoe-thinks-record-breaking-box-office-should-be-spread-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905206\/","title":{"rendered":"Willem Dafoe Thinks Record-Breaking Box Office Should Be ‘Spread Out’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWillem Dafoe<\/a>, who is at the Zurich Film Festival<\/a> presenting the opening night film \u201cTenzing<\/a>,\u201d spoke about the record-breaking 2026 box office while emphasizing the importance of watching the Jennifer Peedom epic in cinemas. The film, which opened to warm Zurich audiences last night, will have a limited theatrical release in the U.S. from Oct. 9 ahead of its global streaming debut on Apple TV on Oct. 16.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe only problem is that the audience comes mainly from three, four huge movies,\u201d he said of this year\u2019s record-breaking $4.76 billion U.S. summer box office, driven largely by Christopher Nolan\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d and Destin Daniel Cretton\u2019s \u201cSpider-Man<\/a>: Brand New Day.\u201d \u201cA couple of smaller movies kind of catch on and do well, but it\u2019s got to be spread out a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDafoe himself is perhaps one of the actors who best treads the line between blockbusters and small festival darlings, having appeared in Sam Raimi\u2019s first \u201cSpider-Man\u201d back in 2002 as well as collaborating with now-renowned auteurs early in their careers, such as Sean Baker, Wes Anderson, Yorgos Lanthimos and Robert Eggers.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking about his turn in the comic book world, Dafoe said he became a part of it at the \u201cstart of business-as-normal making movies from comic books.\u201d \u201cWhen I was proposed this role, some of my friends were like: \u2018Are you kidding? Are you going to play this green guy? That\u2019s not cool! That sounds like a terrible movie!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was not a big comic book fan; I didn\u2019t know about this world, but Sam Raimi did,\u201d he added. \u201cI saw his attachment to it and saw how he saw it. I liked him so much that he really is what got me into it. Once I was in it, I had really fun things to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor said he \u201chad done some movies that had found success\u201d but that, to this day, the most consistent point of recognition from audiences is \u201cprobably the Green Goblin.\u201d \u201cFor better or for worse,\u201d he said. \u201cLuckily, I do other things so I am not haunted by this mono-identity, but it\u2019s pretty strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDafoe enjoyed his experience in the Marvel Cinematic Universe both in the 2002 film and during his return as Green Goblin on \u201cSpider-Man: No Way Home.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re part of cinema. They are right up there with Bela Tarr,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple Original Films<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTenzing\u201d chronicles the story of the first-ever ascent of Mount Everest by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, played by Genden Phuntsok and Tom Hiddleston, respectively. Dafoe plays Colonel John Hunt, the leader of the 1953 British expedition team. Commenting on the experience of shooting on real mountains at high altitude, Dafoe said the entire film team had to be \u201cvery careful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe had great safety people,\u201d he noted. \u201cThey\u2019re checking for avalanches, for all sorts of things. There are 10 guys purely helping us slip in and making sure we\u2019re safe, helping us if we struggle [\u2026] That\u2019s the tension. Nature is the biggest partner you\u2019ll have because it tells you what you have to do. There is no invented world. It\u2019s a world that really exists; you\u2019re not questioning [its] authenticity. You\u2019re definitely on this mountain, and you\u2019re definitely having a little hard time breathing, or you\u2019re fatigued, or you\u2019re hungry, or you have to go to the toilet, and there\u2019s no toilet there\u2026 All kinds of challenges and, on top of that, you\u2019ve got the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Willem Dafoe, who is at the Zurich Film Festival presenting the opening night film \u201cTenzing,\u201d spoke about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134,35258,463814,85732,60991],"class_list":["post-905206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-spider-man","tag-tenzing","tag-willem-dafoe","tag-zurich-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}