Here’s one way ‘Bros’ did make history at the box office last year—and it’s a bit of a bummer
Billy Eichner walked on stage of the MTV Video Music Awards to plug his movie Bros (and—for some reason—to introduce a performance from Panic!
At The Disco).That night, the comedian launched into a fiery speech about how his then-upcoming movie would be “making history as the first gay rom-com ever made by a major studio,” asking everyone watching to support Bros in theaters to show “homophobes like Clarence Thomas” that the public does, indeed, support gay love stories.The monologue was pretty widely shared, dissected, and meme’d in the coming weeks, and would be pointed to by detractors as proof that Bros marketed itself all wrong: It was more focused on telling us it was “important” and “historical” than telling us it was a good movie (which it was!).Whether or not you agree with the assessment, the unfortunate reality is that none of the promo from Eichner, the studio, etc… quite worked, because Bros wound up only grossing $14.8 million worldwide (off of a reported $22 million budget) and was considered a bomb.Eichner says not enough straight people have turned out to see the movie.
