WRECK ON THE HIGHWAY: Disney’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere Bombs in the U.S.A.
As great as I found director Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, nothing about its box office failure is surprising. And it is not only a failure; it is a shocking failure for box office analysts who projected an opening as high as $25 million with a $15 million worst case.
Well, as of this morning, the groomers at the Disney Grooming Syndicate are wishing that worst-case scenario had come about, because Deliver Me from Nowhere is staring into the abyss of a pathetic $9 million weekend debut and a humiliating fourth-place finish.
According to various reports, Nowhere cost $60 million to produce, at least another $50 million to promote, which means Disney will need to gross at least $200 million worldwide just to break even
That ain’t happening.
So, what did happen? How did a biopic about Freddie Mercury gross almost $1 billion worldwide? Bob Dylan’s biopic grossed $140 million. Elton John hit $195 million. Springsteen will be lucky to gross half of Dylan’s $140 million worldwide.
Well, as I said, the failure isn’t surprising.
To begin with, Deliver Me From Nowhere is not a jukebox musical. People know this is not a greatest hits biopic, and people want to hear the greatest hits. What’s more, the one album Nowhere does cover, 1982’s Nebraska, doesn’t have any hits. It’s a stripped-down, dark, and dreary folk album. Springsteen fans love Nebraska, which brings me to the next problem… The major one…
Bruce Springsteen has not been Bruce Springsteen for a long, long time. A massive part of his fan base was made up of the working class. The men who raced in the streets, worked in the factories, lived on the margins, counted the days till Friday and payday, and kept our world turning with their dirty hands and broken dreams…
Bruce Springsteen's Trump Derangement Syndrome is worse than ever. https://t.co/jECz5v0oyf
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) June 24, 2020
As “Miami” Steve Van Zandt told the London Times last year, “‘When Bruce got vocal behind the Democrats, we probably lost half the audience. There’s nowhere we can’t do business.’ But some places feel like enemy territory now? ‘A little bit, yeah. We’re ten times bigger in Europe. We might play six stadiums in America and sixty in Europe.’”
Fortunately, Miami Steve is doing all that he can to repair the rift between the Boss and Trump supporters: Steven Van Zandt Is Bruce Springsteen’s Guitarist. He Hates You. He Wants You Dead.