Bucky Larson a Box Office Bomb; My Faith in Humanity is Restored

It was a few weeks ago when I was doing one of my occasional browsing for new movie trailers on YouTube. I clicked on Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star because it was a movie I heard absolutely nothing about. I've discovered some pretty good movies by taking a gamble on something I didn't hear mentioned before. I committed one of the biggest mistakes of my life when I clicked on the link for that trailer.

I got nauseous watching that horrid trailer.

I got even sicker when I realized this was a trailer for a real movie.

A movie that people would willingly part with their money, in order to see.

A movie that people would say, "I think I am going to go see a movie tonight, and my choice for the movie I'm giving up 2 hours of my life for will be Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star."

Thinking this is a film that someone in the world thought would make money still causes me cold sweats.

In case you haven't heard of this film, it's basically about a guy who is watching porn and suddenly realizes the people getting it on are his parents. When he learns this traumatic fact, he doesn't swear off porn for life but rather believes this means he was always meant to be a star, since it is in his blood. So, he goes off to Hollywood to be a porn star.

Now, I want to make it very clear that my problem with this movie has nothing to do with morals. I am not offended that this is a movie about a guy who ventures off to Hollywood to be a porn star. That doesn't bother me in the least. After all, I've watched and loved many R-Rated crude comedies. I love my fair share of vulgarity and adult humour. I think there is a place for it. I actually think the basic premise of this movie could be funny and entertaining.

My problem with this movie is that the trailer showcased something that might possibly be funny as a 2 minute SNL sketch. It'd likely have worn out its welcome at 5 minutes. As a two hour movie, I'm spraying the seats with half-digested popcorn.

This movie wasn't a SNL skit, but it remind me of the mid to late 90s when SNL kept out carting out countless films based off skits that usually got old after a few minutes. Yet they somehow thought they should be movies. Movies that people would be expected to drop money on. Horrendous, awful, vomit-inducing movies.

Bucky Larson is a backwoods hick type character, who ventures off to Hollywood with no sense. The big problem is that based off the two minutes provided by the trailer, he is so stupid and inept that he is entirely unlikable. He isn't the daft and clueless but lovable character like a Forrest Gump, but rather just someone you want to give a prime eyeball punch to. It is sort of hard to make a good movie when your main character is a complete loser that you want to see run over by a truck.

Plus it just looked awful.

I stated to several people before the premiere of this atrocity, that "I will entirely give up ever watching movies again if this film does well in the box office." I was pretty confident it would do poorly. Because I have faith in humanity and feel it is not the end of the world yet.

Then the commercials started on the TV. A lot. It looked like a big budget went into advertising it. I started to get worried. It was all over the websites I went to. It got top billing on YouTube for a bit. A lot was invested in this sucker. I questioned people's ability to see through total bullshit.

Well, I woke up Monday morning to the radio announcer going over the weekend box office. Bucky Larson opened out of the top ten. Let me explain this, there is never more than 4 or so movies that are mass released on a weekend. Typically, the newest movies are going to do the best in the box office or at least be in the top five or so. If you debut out of the top ten, then you lost to movies that have been in the cinema for weeks or even months. Rise of the Planet of the Apes has been out since August, and it is still in the top ten. Bucky Larson is a newly released film that had a huge marketing campaign and it did not even gross enough money to be in the top ten.

Thank you, humanity. I knew I wasn't wrong for having faith in you.

This isn't even the best part. There are films in the summer that will debut and do really poorly. They may have been up against a huge blockbuster titan like Batman or Harry Potter or Star Wars. They might have debuted when several huge money makers debuted or are still ripping apart the box office. But this week, it was considered a really soft week at the box office. This means the returns were not dominated by one single movie. There really isn't a movie doing super well, which is part of the reason that Apes is still doing well. This means that Bucky Larson failed to make it in the top ten, despite the fact that almost all the new movies were only doing average or below business. Not a single movie was drawing in a huge amount of viewers. So, basically, it would have been an easy week to sneak in that top ten. If you didn't make the top ten in a week like this, then it meant you were really raking in a crazy low amount of money. You were drawing in independent film level amount of crowds.

Bucky Larson failed to make the top ten in a soft week at the box office. And Christopher decides that humanity is still a wonderful thing and he will not swear off watching films.

Now, we can only hope that Hollywood learned a lesson here, but I'm sure we are in store for "Jeb Joslaw Loves Horses: A Romance Tale."