Movies
Quentin Tarantino Reflects on ‘Grindhouse’ Failing at the Box Office
To this day, one of my all-time favorite movie-going experiences was seeing Grindhouse on the big screen with my entire family back in 2007, a double-bill of Quentin Tarantino‘s Death Proof and Robert Rodriguez‘s Planet Terror that featured faux trailers that were sandwiched in-between and directed by the likes of Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright.
It was pure bliss, quite frankly, a wild and crazy throwback experience that worked like a charm on the right crowd. The problem? Well, the target audience wasn’t a very big one. The Grindhouse experiment was a total flop here in the States, grossing just $25 million at the box office on a reported production budget of at least $53 million. So what happened?
Answering fan questions for Empire, Tarantino reflected on Grindhouse‘s box office and offered up the cold hard truth about the concept: it just never had mass appeal to begin with.
“With Grindhouse, I think me and Robert just felt that people had a little more of a concept of the history of double features and exploitation movies. No, they didn’t. At all. They had no idea what the fuck they were watching,” Tarantino admits. “It meant nothing to them, alright, what we were doing. So that was a case of being a little too cool for school.”
These comments were originally published by Empire back in July 2019, we should note, but Empire Online only published the full Q&A session with Tarantino this week.
Regardless of how much money Grindhouse did (or didn’t) make at the box office, there’s no denying that the experiment’s influence was massive. Grindhouse spawned a whole new crop of throwback-style films that were cut from a similar cloth, notably including Machete and Hobo With a Shotgun – both of which were direct Grindhouse spinoffs.
It’s a legacy that many box office success stories could only dream of having.
Sunrise Films has announced the official North American release of William Bagley‘s horror comedy Hold the Fort, and it’s accompanied by an energetic new trailer.
Hold the Fort debuts on digital platforms on June 23.
In the film, “Lucas and Jenny think their life is finally coming together when the couple become homeowners. Little do they know that their new house comes with a big catch. Lucas and Jenny soon find themselves in a fight for their lives when they become trapped in a battle between their Homeowners Association and an onslaught of monsters from hell. The horror-comedy takes the timely concern of home-ownership and wraps this up in an entertaining action-packed thrill ride.“
Watch the new trailer below, which introduces one wild HOA gathering during an equinox. Things get bloody fast.
Chris Mayers (Adult Swim Yule Log), Haley Leary (“The Walking Dead”), Levi Burdick, and Julian Smith star.
William Bagley writes and directs, in addition to producing with Smith, Matt Dodd, Luke Williams, and Tim Reis (Adult Swim Yule Log).
Ahead of the release, Bagley said, “My goal with this film was to make a hilarious, fast-paced thrill ride while also telling a great story with heart. Hopefully, through all the blood, laughs, fights, and gags, you leave the film feeling inspired to tackle whatever life throws at you.“
Hold the Fort premiered at Fantasia last summer before going on to play FrightFest London, Toronto After Dark, and Beyond Fest.
I wrote in my review, “It’s an infectiously charming assemblage of jokes and monster vignettes bound together by a barebones plot with not much on its mind beyond delivering an entertaining time.”
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