Looking at it by any reasonable standard, the movie "Blackhat" has it all. First and foremost, there's Chris Hemsworth of "Thor" fame. Then there's Michael Mann, a highly successful director whose high-octane but cerebral movies – like "The Insider," "Collateral" and "Heat" – tend to clean up at the box office. Finally, the focus of the movie is as urgent and dramatic as today's headlines. That's because it's a film about cybercrime, which is something that surrounds us, whether we pay attention to it or not, every second of the day. President Obama discussed cybersecurity in his State of the Union address. We read headlines about major new breaches every week. Colleges are even beginning to offer degrees in cybersecurity. And yet for all the attention that cybersecurity is getting at the educational, news and presidential level, it can't seem to sell a movie.
Trying To Explain A Major Box Office Failure
Just like nobody can predict the stock market, nobody can really predict how a movie is going to open. Sure, studios can get closer to estimating a film's opening weekend revenue than, say, you or I could at guessing the S&P 500, but there's still a lot of room for error. This can go either way – either leaving studio heads wringing their hands in anxiety and shame or smiling ecstatically and saying, "How'd we pull that off?" A prime example of a film that fits nicely into this latter category is "American Sniper," the Chris Kyle biopic starring Bradley Cooper. The film was expected to do good business its opening weekend, but nowhere near the record-breaking $107 million it made over MLK weekend. The studio heads behind that movie are grinning all the way to the bank. But with "Blackhat" – well, that's a different story.
Over its opening weekend, "Blackhat" made a mere $4.4 million, according to Deadline Hollywood. For a movie that cost a reported $70 million to make, that's an absolutely disastrous number – well, that is, if you're on the marketing team behind the movie. So what went wrong to lead a projected success story so far astray? As Deadline reported, one of the main problems was a lack of clarity in the film's marketing campaign. The trailer for the film tells us that we live in an age where our systems and our persons are vulnerable to attack. We see the complex inner-workings of a computer system, the hustle and bustle of a trading floor, and, finally, Chris Hemsworth in all his Adonis glory, cast, improbably enough, as a hacker. The problem with the trailer, according to analysts, is that it lacks cohesion. People don't really know what to expect from the movie after watching the preview.
But another driving reason behind the film's poor numbers is its subject matter: computer security. Based on the movie's opening weekend, it seems that no amount of Chris Hemsworth can make cybercrime sexy to the masses. Which is too bad, because security experts say the film's plotline is admirably plausible. But just because the story – which involves a globe-spanning manhunt for a shadowy and dangerous cybercriminal – is told with accuracy doesn't mean it's a story people want to watch. Even though (or perhaps because) cybersecurity surrounds us, it's not something people want for their cinematic experience.
"Despite its sinister connotations, hacking as a sales tool is nerdy and unappealing," stated Deadline Hollywood's Anthony D'Alessandro. "No one I've talked to could figure out an innovative way to make that seem sexy, and to convey the high stakes and sophistication of the manhunt."
