Alan Ritchson, known for his role in the hit series Reacher, recently experienced a monumental setback when his film Motor City dramatically flopped at the box office. Ritchson, who stirred controversy after using the movie’s promotional activities to level false accusations against former President Donald Trump, accusing him of assaulting underage girls, now finds himself facing significant professional embarrassment.
Debuting in a hefty 1,600 theaters nationwide, Motor City managed to scrape together a meager $1.6 million during its opening weekend. With a per-screen average that barely climbed above $1,015, the film ranked a disheartening 18th in terms of per-screen earnings, a dismal performance by any measure.
Adding salt to the wound, the film was produced on a budget of $30 million, a stark contrast to its scant box office returns.
Interested in how Alan Ritchson has navigated his career? There’s more to the story…
For those not familiar with the film’s premise, here’s the Grokipedia synopsis of Motor City:
Set in 1977 Detroit, the story follows John Miller, a working-class romantic played by Alan Ritchson, who falls in love with Sophia (Shailene Woodley), the girlfriend of a ruthless gangster, leading to him being framed for a crime and imprisoned for years. Upon escaping, Miller embarks on a mission of revenge against the gangster (Ben Foster) and his associates… The film is notable for its nearly dialogue-free structure, relying instead on kinetic visuals, operatic violence, and a propulsive soundtrack featuring 1970s needle drops[.]
Who was the movie made for?
Who is the audience for gritty movies about a wronged man “on a mission of revenge” that features “operatic violence?”
Do the middle-aged, left-wing white women with purple hair, nose rings, and too many tattoos flock to revenge movies? No.
Do the pudgy cucks who date left-wing white women with purple hair, nose rings, and too many tattoos flock to revenge movies? No.
Do effete, latte drinkers who dress up like Lance Armstrong to ride their bikes a half mile to the library flock to revenge movies? No.
No, but what do all these people have in common? They hate Trump.
Now, think about who does flock to this very kind revenge movie… We all know who… Normal guys like me, and who did most Normal People vote for? Trump.
Thirty million dollars on the line and this self-important asshole runs around deliberately alienating the very customers needed to make everyone’s money back.
This is how broken the world of entertainment is. There’s no class, there’s no dignity, there’s no one even pretending to respect the audience. What Alan Ritchson did is no different from Bill Gates running around attacking people who use computers as racist; no different from Ronald McDonald doing a PETA ad.
This idiot and the people behind it made a movie aimed at a specific demographic and then used the promotional tour to attack that demographic.
Someone help me to make sense of that.
These people are so sheltered, so bubbled, so coddled, privileged and insulated that there are no consequences for insulting the specific group of customers you need to put a $30 million movie across.
Did this idiot Ritchson believe this approach would convince the NPR crowd to run out and see his movie? Other than hubris, there is nothing to base that on. Ritchson is also undermining his bread and butter, the series Reacher, which streams on Amazon Prime. He’s so ugly, hateful, dishonest, and cruel in real life that it breaks the spell of his Jack Reacher character, who is the exact opposite of those things.
Audience goodwill is the whole ballgame.
AI is coming, y’all. Pretty soon, Normal People will sit in their bedrooms making movies like Motor City for peanuts and Alan Ritchson will sit in his mansion wondering where all the jobs have gone.