{"id":205685,"date":"2025-10-06T21:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T21:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/205685\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T21:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T21:24:08","slug":"dwayne-johnsons-smashing-machine-bombs-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/205685\/","title":{"rendered":"Dwayne Johnson’s ‘Smashing Machine’ Bombs: Here’s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWWE vet Dwayne Johnson<\/a> learned about his Achilles heel at the box office this weekend in Taylor Swift and Leonardo DiCaprio, after his R-rated drama The Smashing Machine<\/a>, hit the mat as the blockbuster star\u2019s lowest opening ever with $5.9M U.S. <\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, this is quite upsetting for Johnson, for the story of UFC champ Mark Kerr was a passion project; the wrestler-turned actor announcing the movie back at the UFC 244 card weigh-in in November 2019.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n\tUpsetting, as Johnson is a tireless promoter who leaves no stone unturned on the PR tour. Like Swift he has a social media reach of a half billion-plus, one which he speaks to directly. <\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tDwayne Johnson in \u2018The Smashing Machine\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA24\/Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tUpsetting as there truly seemed to be an awards glow on The Smashing Machine coming out of its Venice Film Festival World premiere after its 15 1\/2 minute standing ovation, Johnson crying on a global stage, Safdie\u2019s Silver Lion win and a seemingly good 73% Rotten Tomatoes certified fresh critical score. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut it\u2019s never a good sign when a movie plummets from its initial projections on tracking. Three weeks ago, Smashing Machine was forecasted to be one of A24<\/a>\u2018s highest openings in the high teens to $20M range. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat the hell happened? <\/p>\n

\n\tJust like Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party for a Showgirl is a box office case study in its last-minute announcement and thrifty marketing campaign which fueled a $34M opening, so is the fallout here from Smashing Machine. <\/p>\n

\n\tWord began to leak at Smashing Machine\u2018s Toronto North American premiere that the movie wasn\u2019t all that. And, no, not because Johnson was stretching with an edgy dramatic performance, rather Smashing Machine wasn\u2019t an underdog sports movie, nor necessarily one about a champ\u2019s downfall, rather a very non-traditional, deliberately paced movie about an athlete struggling with drug addiction. The movie\u2019s B- CinemaScore is on par with A24\u2019s cinematic canon which is known to divide critics and moviegoers. <\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s the good news before diving into the bad, and that\u2019s this movie at a net $50M production cost with tax credits from Vancouver and New Mexico won\u2019t lose much, estimates being in the $10M-$15M range. <\/p>\n

\n\tOn the low end, that\u2019s based on a final domestic between $14M-$20M. How great that loss becomes hinges on how hard A24 wants to push the movie this awards season, insiders telling us that the NYC label continues to support the movie, and stands behind the filmmaker\u2019s vision. Smashing Machine\u2018s budget is propped by foreign sales (which the Rock lobbied for back at Cannes 2024) estimated to be in the $35M range. A24 also has a great pay-one deal in HBO Max. <\/p>\n

\n\tSmashing Machine was a project foreign buyers liked in qualitative terms but at the time, sources say there were concerns over its commerciality as a story with an unrecognizable Johnson onscreen and UFC lesser known cultural presence outside the United States. Johnson took a $4M fee, significantly below his historical $20M+ paycheck plus points. Sources say he even gave a portion of his paycheck to Emily Blunt and Kerr. Theatrical P&A is factored at an estimated $15M. <\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSony Classics<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile that net $50M might be low for a Rock movie, it\u2019s considerably high for a wrestling movie. Reality check: There\u2019s a very low ceiling on wrestling movies at the box office and arguably always has been, outside Jared Hess\u2019 2006 Nacho Libre which opened post the director\u2019s fanfare of Napoleon Dynamite, when Jack Black original comedies could debut to $28.3M and end their domestic run at $80M. <\/p>\n

\n\tLook back at the grosses of wrestling movies, and Smashing Machine\u2018s actually seems above average, i.e. A24\u2019s 2023 Iron Claw ($4.8M 3-day, $35M domestic), Darren Aronofsky\u2019s 2x Oscar nominated The Wrestler (its highest grossing weekend at $3.7M was its 6th with a $26.2M final domestic in 2008) and Bennett Miller\u2019s 2014 Foxcatcher ($1M in its widest break, final of $12M). Heck, even the Robert Aldrich directed, Peter Falk starring 1981 nudie comedy, \u2026All the Marbles, about female-wrestling fell outside the ring with $6.1M domestic. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn regards to Smashing Machine\u2018s misfire, some are elbowing A24 and its means of marketing. The hipster specialty cinema brand no doubt wants to graduate to bigger headliner projects, evident in their business with Johnson here and their upcoming Josh Safdie directed movie Marty Supreme with 2x Oscar nominee Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet. Criticizes one boutique studio exec, \u201cIf A24 wants to make movies at this budget threshold with A list stars they can\u2019t just rely on their digital-social media and tastemaker driven campaigns. It\u2019s a very a different ballgame.\u201d The misfiring of Smashing Machine comes in the wake of A24 bungling the opening of horror-comedy, Death of a Unicorn, back in the spring, which after a receptive world premiere at SXSW with Wednesday megastar, Jenna Ortega, tanked with a $5.7M opening and final $12.8M domestic. Many believe that A24, particularly with a star like Ortega, could have positioned the movie better. While 64% 18-34 showed up for Smashing Machine, the entire over-35 specialty adult crowd was completely missed.<\/p>\n

\n\tOptics you don\u2019t expect on a wide release for the Rock had Benny Safdie walking around Manhattan, passing out flyers and promoting the movie with a sandwich board. <\/p>\n

\n\tiSpot shows Warner Bros with One Battle After Another outspending Smashing Machine, 13 to 1 on linear. To A24\u2019s defense, they did hit up sports programming, it\u2019s just that some believe it came too late with spots during MLB playoffs, NFL, college football, ESPN SportsCenter and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Movie marketing execs say it took a lot for Warner Bros\u2019 to get One Battle After Another to a $20M+ opening; that DiCaprio-starring, Paul Thomas Anderson-directed movie towering over Smashing Machine in 2nd place with a 2nd weekend of $11M.<\/p>\n

\n\tUFC CEO Dana White was a definite proponent of Smashing Machine and embraced it early with several screenings for UFC tastemakers as well as signed-off integrations. Fans of the sport at 279 million strong around the globe didn\u2019t come out. Why? Again, word of mouth, but also, they\u2019re a homebound demo, shelling high priced money to watch fights in their living room. Smashing Machine is the type of movie they\u2019re bound to catch on their couch. <\/p>\n

\n\tDespite all the rah-rah coming out of Venice for the film, it also comes as another warning sign for other auteur driven starry movies down the road (who can forget Joker: Folie a Deux) looking to make an awards season world premiere there. If you paddle to the Lido, better have the goods, or else a movie winds up saddled with a critical reaction a month or so before it opens. Some in tracking ponder whether a 76% certified fresh score is a solid indicator when it comes to forecasting opening weekends.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe eleventh-hour addition of AMC\u2019s Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl<\/a>\u00a0which won the weekend sans trailers or one-sheets, certainly didn\u2019t help Smashing Machine. While there\u2019s no overlap in demos between Swift and Rock, essentially she ran away with his movie\u2019s higher ticket priced premium large format screens, not to mention, if you\u2019re surfing the web over the weekend, you were apt to land on a movie ticket portal for the 14x Grammy winner\u2019s movie, not the multi-billion dollar leading man. As we mentioned in our weekend coverage, Swift was able to rally with very little promotion because she was tied to her own cultural event, that being her 12th album drop, not to mention she\u2019s in a zone that fans crave to watch her. The latter couldn\u2019t be said about Johnson and his fans when it came to Smashing Machine. <\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tSOUTHLAND TALES<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEverett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson has been in this specialty slump before: The $17M-budgeted 2006 gonzo movie Southland Tales grossed under $300K at the domestic B.O. after a Cannes Film Festival world premiere. Not to mention, audiences weren\u2019t really in their seats for his last R-rated movie, 2013\u2019s Pain & Gain which earned a C+ (despite the Michael Bay bodybuilders and drugs movie opening to $20.2M).<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there\u2019s no need for Johnson to sweat: He\u2019ll be back in all victory belt box office glory soon with the openings of Disney\u2019s live-action Moana on July 10, 2026 and Sony\u2019s Jumanji 3 on Dec. 11 next year as well. <\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson posted three hours before this post, \u201cFrom deep in my grateful bones, thank you to everyone who has watched The Smashing Machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn our storytelling world, you can\u2019t control box office results \u2014 but what I realized you can control is your performance, and your commitment to completely disappear and go elsewhere. And I will always run to that opportunity,\u201d he continued while summing, \u201cTruth is this film has changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WWE vet Dwayne Johnson learned about his Achilles heel at the box office this weekend in Taylor Swift…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[17979,4224,88,115156],"class_list":{"0":"post-205685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-a24","9":"tag-dwayne-johnson","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-smashing-machine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}