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Sometimes, a movie just doesn’t get the fair shake that it deserves, even if all of the right pieces seem to be in place. Such was the case with “The Bronze.” A comedy released by Sony Pictures Classics in 2016, the film was pretty much dead on arrival and hardly registered at all with moviegoers at the time despite being written by and starring Melissa Rauch of “The Big Bang Theory” fame. Mind you, this was when the CBS sitcom was still thriving on the air. So, what went wrong?
For those who may not be familiar, “The Bronze” centers on Hope Ann Greggory (Rauch). Once America’s sweetheart, Hope’s performance on a ruptured achilles at a prestigious gymnastics tournament when she was younger brought glory to her small hometown in Ohio. In the years since that third place victory, however, she hasn’t done much with her life. Still living in her dad Stan’s (Gary Cole) basement, Hope spends her days at the mall milking her minor celebrity. That is, until, her routine is upended when she learns she must coach the town’s newest gymnastics prodigy Maggie (Haley Lu Richardson) in order to receive a big inheritance.
Commercial director Bryan Buckley helmed “The Bronze,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015. At the time, /FIlm gave the movie a six out of 10 review, and Sony Pictures Classics ended up swooping in to scoop up the rights, ultimately giving the film a theatrical release the following year. Not only does Rauch star, but its cast also features the likes of Sebastian Stan (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”), Gary Cole (“Office Space”), Thomas Middleditch (“Silicon Valley”), and Cecily Strong (“Saturday Night Live”).
On paper, then, “The Bronze” had an awful lot going for it, including a killer cast, a debut at a major film festival, and a very solid premise. So, once again, what went wrong? Well, a lot, it turns out.
What went wrong with The Bronze?
First and foremost, critics, on the whole, weren’t on the side of “The Bronze.” As of this writing, the film has a pretty lousy 37% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Viewers didn’t respond much better, as the audience rating only sits at 44%. It’s always difficult to overcome critical reception of that kind, regardless of the genre or who is in your movie. There are situations like “Venom” where critics largely don’t like the movie but audiences disagree. Here? They were largely aligned.
To make matters worse, Sony released the film in a jam-packed March back in 2016. For starters, Disney’s “Zootopia” was in the midst of its $1 billion record-breaking run, topping the charts for a third weekend in a row. There were also other audience-friendly holdovers such as “10 Cloverfield Lane,” “Deadpool,” and “The Revenant” doing business as well.
As far as new releases that weekend went, Lionsgate released “Allegiant,” the third film in the “Divergent” franchise, with the faith-based picture “Miracles from Heaven” also arriving, both of which finished in the top five. That didn’t leave much room for “The Bronze,” which finished all the way in 25th place, taking in just $386,328 from 1,167 screens for a lousy $331 per-screen average. It was completely DOA and out of theaters within a few weeks, making just $615,816 total. The only upside for Sony here was the budget, which was a modest $3.5 million. So, luckily, it’s not as though the studio had a blockbuster-sized fortune on the line here.
With that being the case, the movie made its way to streaming, where it had the chance to find an audience over the years that followed. To what degree runs on Hulu or VOD helped Sony recover the investment is unknown but, no two ways about it, this one simply didn’t work in its original run.
“The Bronze” is currently available on VOD, or you can grab it on Blu-ray/DVD via Amazon.
