10 Filmmakers Who Blamed Audiences For Movie Failures
6. Jim Sheridan - Brothers
The majority of filmmakers on this list at least had the decency to wait until their movie actually failed to blame audiences, but not Jim Sheridan. He didn't let something so small as the fact that his effort had yet to even release get in the way.
Brothers, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire, was incredibly heavy, dealing with the damage and PTSD inflicted on soldiers thanks to the war in Afghanistan. Against a budget of $26 million, it brought in just $43 million globally, a disappointing figure to be sure, but not exactly a surprising one.
This kind of war movie wouldn't typically invite bums on seats in the cinema, and it was realistically never going to be a hit at the box office, but even so, Sheridan took his shots at potential audiences for not seeing it, before they hadn't seen it.
In an interview published one month before release, the director blasted the American public for not knowing that there was a war on at all, and therefore having no reason to go and watch a film based around it. He may have had a point, since Brothers underperformed in spite of generally favourable reviews, but at least give it a chance first.