A visual feast brought in on a miniscule $80 million budget, The Creator is sure to be deep in the mix when the technical awards are handed out in the run up to (and including) the 2024 Oscars, as well as delivering some stellar performances. Despite having every tool in its arsenal to deliver a financial blockbuster, the film never quite ignited the box office as hoped, but despite that has now moved past the $100 million global box office mark thanks in part to ILM‘s mind-blowing work and design, which should have seen it gather so much more.
The Creator under-performed in its opening weekend, and was never quite able to recover. It has made only $40 million domestically over the course of its run, and a little over $60 million from overseas territories, for a running global haul of $101 million. The film was produced on a reported budget of $80 million, which was seen as an achievement considering its vast visual effects requirements, but ultimately proved to be too high a number for an original movie without a bankable star in the lead.
What also probably hurt the film were the lukewarm reviews that it opened to despite the positive online buzz around Edwards’ near-guerilla filmmaking approach, and the inability of its cast to promote it because of the SAG-AFTRA strike. The film sits at a borderline “fresh” 66% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with Collider’s Maggie Lovitt calling it “neither a masterpiece nor a complete misfire” in her review. The Creator was released at a time when the conversation around the sinister potential of artificial intelligence was at its peak, but the film’s pressing themes weren’t able to capture the imagination of audiences.
The Creator arrives on digital platforms on 14th November, and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on 12th December ahead of arriving on Disney Plus.
