Andy Samberg on Why He Thinks ‘Popstar’ Did Poorly at the Box Office
As the Hollywood Reporter has shared, movie studios are on “red alert” after a disappointing summer box office. Audiences are down by 3 percent on last year, after rejecting an onslaught of lackluster franchise attempts, unwanted sequels, and pointless reboots.
Unfortunately, this lack of enthusiasm has seemingly affected some that were quite deserving of an audience, like Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Despite reviews hailing it as the funniest movie of 2016, it hasn’t earned even $10 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo.
Its star, Andy Samberg, told Yahoo Movies that he’s noticed that crowds just haven’t been going to theaters in the past few months. “Everyone has been talking about how rough of a summer it’s been,” he said. “Even the huge tentpole stuff has been underperforming, whatever that means.”
While the box office will have earned about $4.5 billion after Labor Day, good for the second-best summer ever, multiple “tentpoles” had poor showings. Alice Through the Looking Glass, Jason Bourne, and Star Trek Beyond are just a few examples. Popstar wasn’t intended to have the same pull as a Marvel movie, but its failure to make money was nevertheless disappointing.
Samberg thinks it’s just one of those titles that people will discover after the fact. “I feel fine with it,” he said. “We had a similar situation with Hot Rod, and now I get people talking to me about Hot Rod everywhere I go. I think there’s no, really, one way to find its audience. And it’s already on iTunes and on demand. And people are talking to me about Popstar a lot.”
If you’re a fan of Samberg’s work, don’t worry, he doesn’t seem likely to change his style in hopes of finding a larger audience. “All you can ever do is make something to the best of your ability,” he concluded. “And then let it graze into the world and find its place.”
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