September 2, 2019
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new Fred Durst-directed movie “The Fanatic”flopped spectacularly in theaters this weekend.
On Friday, the film grossed a mere $3,153 from 52 theaters scattered across the U.S. for a location average of roughly $60. In a handful of theaters, it grossed $10 or less; the highest gross was $736 at the Arena Cinelounge in Hollywood.
“The Fanatic” stars John Travolta as an obsessive fan named Moose who stalks an action movie star. The movie was previously described as having the feeling of an independent thriller film, with Travolta‘s unassuming-turned-dangerous stalker reminiscent of Robin Williams‘s transformative performance in “One Hour Photo”.
Reviewers haven’t been kind to “The Fanatic”, with Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.comgiving the movie zero stars and writing: “‘The Fanatic’ hates fans. It hates actors. It hates tourists, shop owners, and servants. It really, really hates autistic people. And it hates you. It’s a movie that thinks you’re an idiot, someone who won’t see through its shallow provocations, illogical behavior, and vile misanthropy.”
Robert Abele of TheWrap wrote: “With no explanation for what the Moose‘s condition is — and boy, is what Travolta doing a choice — Durst and his main star have, rather than giving us a character, merely offered up a hapless, carnival figure of laughable madness, alternately impossible and improbable.”
Variety wrote: “One hesitates to lay all the blame at Durst‘s doorstep, since by all accounts his first directorial feature ‘The Education Of Charlie Banks’ (2007) was a serious, creditable drama. But as helmer, producer, co-writer, concept originator and recording catalog self-promoter here, he merits the accusation of this typically rank dialogue morsel: ‘Moose didn’t just cross the line. He fuckin’ nuked it.'”
“The Fanatic” currently has a 17% critic score from 42 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, an online review aggregation service that allows the public to score the movies alongside critics.
Travolta recently said that the LIMP BIZKIT frontman approached him with the idea of being in the film.
“I didn’t know Fred could write this well, I didn’t know he could direct as well, and he blew my mind,” he told 11 Alive. “He knew this guy Moose that’s actually loosely based on a real guy and he wrote it with me in mind. He just knew I could portray this guy.”
Durst‘s feature debut, 2007’s “The Education Of Charlie Banks”, was produced for $5 million but earned only $15,000 at the box office, although Durst won the Made In NY Narrative Award at the Tribeca Film Festival. For his second feature, “The Longshots”, Durst teamed up with Ice Cube and Keke Palmer.
(as seen on blabbermouth.net)
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