'Juror No. 2' Could Be Clint Eastwood's Last Movie — So Why Is Warner Bros. Burying It?
AFI Fest, the longest-running film festival in Los Angeles, will kick off its 38th edition Sunday evening with the world premiere of Clint Eastwood's “Juror #2” at the historic TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Stars Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette and Zoe Deitch will walk the red carpet, marking the festival's fourth world premiere of an Eastwood-directed feature. The courtroom drama is the filmmaker's 40th directorial effort – and, at 94, it's likely his final drama.
Four days later, Warner Bros. will give “Juror #2” a slightly less distinguished treatment. The studio is releasing the feature In limited release to fewer than 50 theaters, there are no current plans to expand to more locations in the coming weeks, according to two sources with knowledge of the film's distribution.
While the exact location count is still being finalized, as it stands a week from opening day, “Juror #2” is currently listing showtimes at four locations around New York City, five in the Los Angeles area and one in Chicago. Across the country's 25 most populous cities, the film is listing pre-sales in less than 25 locations. Cineplex, Canada's leading exhibitor chain, is releasing the film in just one theater in Toronto and 160 venues nationwide. While many indies never expand beyond a handful of theaters, it's less common for releases from major Hollywood studios like Warner Bros. As things currently stand, “Juror #2” will be seen in far fewer auditoriums than other awards season releases such as “Anora” and the likes of “The Brutalist,” which was made on a shoestring budget, but will end up splashing across thousands of screens.
“'Juror #2' is being released in the US, UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany with the full support of Warner Bros.,” a studio spokesperson said. “The film will make its global debut at the AFI Film Festival this weekend.”
Sources said diversity That Warner Bros. is considering not reporting box office earnings for the film — an unconventional practice for a traditional Hollywood studio, though not an unprecedented one. Earlier this year, Disney put Daisy Ridley's biographical sports drama “Young Woman and the Sea” into an undisclosed number of theaters and optioned against gross releases. Two weeks later, the film debuted on Disney+. The decision seemed odd to some who noticed: a half-measured roll-out for a film that was originally commissioned as an exclusive streaming release, but moved to a theater after high testing. Some noted that the release meant that “Young Woman and the Sea” met the Academy's qualifications to be considered for an Oscar nomination, but this appears to be incidental because the film did not receive the promotional push necessary for a serious awards contender.
Similarly, “Juror #2” was originally envisioned as a streaming release, as first reported by Puck and confirmed by a source. After screening the film, the studio moved to the theater, which was built on a mid-$30 million budget. Although next week's limited release will serve as an awards-qualifying run, Sources said diversity That film is not being considered a major Oscar player internally by Warner Bros. Notably, “Juror #2” is not shown on the company's FYC 2024 webpage. That's not entirely unexpected, as Eastwood hasn't proven to be an awards player since “American Sniper” received six Academy Award nominations in 2015. Only two nods have since followed: sound editing for “Sully” in 2017, and supporting actress Kathy Bates for “Richard Jewell” in 2020.
Yet the quiet rollout for “Juror #2” remains an odd approach for a filmmaker who still has commercial appeal. “American Sniper” was the highest-grossing domestic release of 2014. Eastwood's two follow-ups, “Sully” and “The Mule,” both grossed more than $100 million in North America. But in the contemporary theatrical landscape, badly disrupted by the Covid pandemic, original adult-oriented plays are viewed by studios as a much riskier theatrical prospect than they were five years ago.
Warner Bros., the studio with which Eastwood has partnered for more than 50 years, appears to be reevaluating its relationship with the filmmaker following the release of his latest feature “Cry Macho” in 2021. That western drama, which saw a non-aged Eastwood directing himself as a former rodeo star who finds redemption south of the border, was a box office flop, grossing $16.5 million worldwide against a $33 million production budget. Still in the early months of recovery from the pandemic lockdown, the film faced an uphill challenge launching in a theatrical landscape. Like the rest of Warner Bros. it got its streaming debut on Max (then titled HBO Max) concurrently with a day-date launch.' That year's theatrical slate.
In May 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that the underperformance of the reportedly-reviewed “Cry Macho” had emerged as a point of contention at the studio amid strategy changes in the wake of WarnerMedia's merger with Discovery, Inc. Minted CEO David Zaslav questioned why “Cry Macho” was made when film executives admitted they doubted the movie could make a profit. “It's not show friends, it's show business,” the executive was quoted as saying.
Still, Eastwood is back at Warner Bros.' Good graces by April 2023, when the studio greenlit “Juror #2” headed by Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdi to lead the WB film division before summer. But now, the studio seems to have little confidence in the film's commercial potential. A source close to Warner Bros. says the decision to keep “Juror #2” in theaters represents a gesture of gratitude to Eastwood, who has earned billions at the box office as well as numerous awards for “Indecent” and “Million Dollar Baby.” But does a limited rollout to a handful of venues really qualify as a proper distribution plan for an industry icon who has remained loyal to the studio for decades?
In the current landscape, this is apparently as good as it gets.