The story of Monkey Man is one of the most interesting—and surprising—tales to come out of Hollywood in recent years. No, I’m not talking about the plot, which is a fairly straightforward action-revenge flick, albeit one set in the alien (to Western audiences) world of India. I refer, rather, to the story of how it wound up on a couple thousand big screens this weekend.
Filming of the Dev Patel-starring-and-directed feature was set to take place in India before the Covid pandemic hit, sparking delays; shooting was finished in 2021 and the rights were sold to Netflix. And then it just … sat around for a while. According to the Hollywood Reporter, there seems to have been some issue with global rights (Netflix wanted everything, but the film had already been pre-sold to certain territories; this is how producers like Basil Iwanyk mitigate risk when investing in a movie like Monkey Man).
Here's where things get interesting: Three years later, Jordan Peele announced that his production company had bought the film from Netflix and would be releasing it wide in American theaters. Following a fantastic reception at South by Southwest excitement mounted, and now it’s hitting theaters with a (as of this writing) 91 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a decent amount of buzz.
Again, this feels like the opposite of the way things have happened over the last four or five years: we’re so used to movies moving from theatrical to streaming that it almost feels like a miracle someone has decided to put an original movie without any big stars (apologies to Dev, who is wonderful, but not precisely Leo or Keanu) and move it from streaming to theatrical.
And honestly, it feels like a great bet. Yes, there’s the high Rotten Tomatoes score, but critical praise for a movie like this is a necessary, though not sufficient, requirement for a movie of this sort. It helps that the promotional materials have been great—as much as Patel might balk at the film’s description as “Indian John Wick,” the trailers and buzz have done nothing to suggest that elevator pitch is wrong. It helps more that we’re in something of a release drought, given the paucity of pictures ready for big-screen deployment thanks to the one-two punch of COVID delays and the dual strikes last year.
And it helps that there is, at least theoretically, a built-in audience for this sort of picture, as we’ve seen from the surge in domestic box office bucks for Indian action movies like Pathaan ($17.5M), RRR ($15.1M), Jawan ($15.2M), and Baahubali 2: The Conclusion ($20.2M). I say theoretically because there’s an enormous difference between these Indian action films—which are frequently part musicals and often ridiculously over the top—and Monkey Man, which is a grittier, more realistic affair. I don’t know that the Indian diaspora will necessarily show up for Patel’s film, but at least it’s a market that Monkey Paw might be able to activate.
Look: I don’t think Monkey Man is likely to be a $300-million movie or anything. But it doesn’t need to be that. The first John Wick (also produced by Basil Iwanyk and his Thunder Road label) only grossed $43 million domestically and $86 million worldwide. These things start small and grow: the fourth entry in the series, out last year, earned more than five times as much worldwide. Either way, the movie feels like an event now rather than something that will show up on the homepage of Netflix for a couple of days before sinking into the digital morass. And it’s very much the sort of movie you’ll want to see with an audience; there’s nothing quite like feeling the air get sucked out of a room when a particularly brutal hit lands.
Make sure to check out today’s Across the Movie Aisle, which is a particularly silly episode featuring Peter, Alyssa, and myself offering up some nutty franchise crossovers in the wake of Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire’s success. We also reviewed that movie here. It is … dumb. But maybe fun dumb? Certainly dumb though.
Links!
Speaking of Monkey Man, I reviewed it this week. I enjoyed it, though I’m a bit more muted in my praise than some of colleagues. It definitely takes a while to get to the proverbial fireworks factory.
I hope you listened to last week’s episode of The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood; I had a great time talking to Lousy Carter star David Krumholtz and writer-director Bob Byington. And make sure to rent the movie if you haven’t done so yet!
There’s a new Matrix movie in the works, which is very funny since The Matrix Resurrections (a bad movie) was specifically designed to kill the franchise by emphasizing how dumb endless IP maintenance is.
Amazing moment in this interview with John Waters in which he reveals that Ontario censors literally burned the print of Multiple Maniacs he sent to the censorship board back in 1970. The lesson, as always, is that the MPA rating system isn’t that bad!
Gotta say: I really loved the trailer for The Last Stop in Yuma County. Gives that Tarantino-y vibe that so many indies in the mid-to-late ’90s were throwing off, right down to the font choice. check it out:
Assigned Viewing: The Omen (1976)
You know what I really appreciate? When a studio decides to put everything from a franchise on a streaming service rather than trying to entice you to spend $4 on a rental of the previous entries. For instance: The First Omen hits theaters this weekend, and 20th Century Studios (previously 20th Century Fox) has all of the previous Omens available to stream for free on Hulu. The Omen, Damien: Omen II, Omen III: The Final Conflict, Omen IV: The Awakening, and The Omen (2006) are right there, ready to be watched. Very convenient!
Anyway, I revisited the original Omen this week because I might want to go see the new one, and it’s still pretty entertaining, as far as Exorcist knock-offs go. It’s also an interesting entry in the paranoid thriller canon, given that the conclusion of the film basically says “hey, you want to know why everything in Washington, D.C., is so messed up? SATAN that’s why!” Fun times.
For so many- the first stop in Yuma is their last.