Only The Brave was dead on arrival with just $6,002,665. The movie opened against a slew of low-rent fare - Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, the long delayed Geostorm, The Snowman and the barely wide release of Same Kind of Different as Me. Only The Brave was dated for October 20 and was predictably tracking for a disastrous $6 to $7 million opening. Then again, as Only The Brave was opening in theaters, a wildfire in California that was roughly the size of New York City was uncontrollably ablaze, claiming lives and displacing hundreds of thousands of people - so maybe this is subject matter that was far too raw and topical. Perhaps cutting a trailer that focused on the movie’s qualities and strong cast, instead of employing bullshit data analytics and hired consultants would have brought in more auds. This is a textbook example of marketing working against a movie.

Considering the heavy dose of saccharine valor on display in the marketing materials, it would be damn near impossible to predict that Only The Brave would actually receive decent reviews.Īlong with lousy ads that were focus grouped to death toward the heartland of America, Black Label Media then hired Brad Parscale (Trump’s digital media director for his presidential campaign) to target people who are responsive to Trump and push social media ads of the movie toward them. Whether Lionsgate would have cut a better trailer is impossible to say, but what was released hit every familiar note about a noble profession presented as hero worship. On Apit was announced that Lionsgate would no longer handle domestic distribution for the two movies, but retain international rights and Sony would take over US responsibilities.īlack Label took the movie in a different direction alright and began by changing the title, which was Granite Mountain and changed it to the hokey Only The Brave. Only The Brave was first dated for September 22 and after very strong test screening scores, Black label wanted a different approach to sell the picture. Despite a successful collaboration on Sicario and La La Land, Black Label and Lionsgate disagreed over the marketing approach and release dates for Only The Brave and Sicario‘s sequel Soldado. Sales were strong, which would limit Black Label’s exposure to the film’s price tag. Lionsgate was set as domestic distributor and handled international sales to distributors.

The budget for Only The Brave was $38 million and it was financed by Black Label Media. Cast: Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges, Taylor Kitsch.Written By: Sean Flynn, Ken Nolan, Eric Warren Singer.

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