Zac Efron’s “We Are Your Friends” got no love from friends, or pretty much anyone else, this weekend at the box office.
“We Are Your Friends” debuted at just $1.8 million with a wide-release in 2,333 theaters. It now sits at No. 4 on Box Office Mojo’s worst wide openings of all time (based on the site’s data collection from 1982 onward). The only films with openings more dismal include: “Oogieloves In The BIG Balloon Adventure” ($443,901); “Delgo” ($511,920); and “Saw 10th Anniversary” ($650,051).
The film, about an aspiring DJ and co-starring supermodel Emily Ratajkowski, was apparently a personal one for Efron.
“This was a passion project for Zac Efron, and we believe in him,” Warner Bros. executive VP for domestic distribution Jeff Goldstein told The Hollywood Reporter. “Yes, the result was disappointing, but this was a small film.”
Warner Bros. paid just $2 million to distribute the film in North America, but tracking suggested the film would open around $8 million, CNN reported.
YourEDM.com’sence had some ideas about why the film performed so poorly:
Let’s start with the plot: a washed up DJ and his girlfriend work with a slightly clueless DJ and his bronies to try and make it big. It completely romanticizes the idea of EDM, leaving out the real intricacies and killing its credibility. Bonus negative points for dumbing down Emily Ratajkowski‘s role to generic female lead and having no other females represented in the film. Lack of support from anyone in the dance music industry didn’t help either.”
“We Are Your Friends” has a 43 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average one of 5/10. Critics called it a “clichéd coming-of-age story as programmed as the soundtrack’s beats.”
Source: HuffingtonPost
