Brad Pitt’s New Thriller Hits Major Box Office Milestone After Being Removed From 1,200 Theaters

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema. 

With a handful of flashy new titles delivering solid box-office hauls in recent weeks, let’s take a moment to highlight the textbook counter-programming that Brad Pitt‘s new movie has offered. Much like the Prime Video series The Terminal List, which, according to star Chris Pratt, is targeted toward an underserved demographic, Pitt’s new movie is also a thriller featuring a military service member. While mainstream audiences have been talking about recent releases such as Verity, Other Mommy, and Primetime, Pitt’s film has handily outperformed them all. In fact, it has grossed more than 10 times as much as Aaron Sorkin‘s The Social Reckoning.

While Sony pulled Sorkin’s movie from 2,000 theaters following a disappointing two-week run, Pitt’s movie was pulled from only 100-odd locations after two weeks. Having spent over a month in release, its total theater count has fallen from around 3,400 to around 2,200. Its stellar holds can be attributed to a “Verified Hot” 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it director David Ayer‘s third movie in a row to be embraced by audiences this wholeheartedly, after The Beekeeper and A Working Man. Pitt is also coming off a crowd-pleaser for the ages, the sports drama F1, which emerged as his highest-grossing hit with a $630 million global haul on the back of a near-perfect 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

Here’s How Much the Survival Thriller Has Grossed at the Box Office So Far

We’re talking, of course, about Heart of the Beast, which has so far grossed more than $170 million globally against a reported budget of around $80 million. Ayer and Pitt’s previous movie together, the fan-favorite WWII drama Fury, grossed more than $210 million worldwide against a similar budget. Heart of the Beast is co-produced by the Oscar-winning Damien Chazelle, and it reportedly underwent a tense post-production with Pitt and Ayer not seeing eye to eye over the final cut. Ayer famously had a similarly intense experience on Suicide Squad. However, Heart of the Beast has emerged as a universally loved hit, and is all set to amass an even larger audience when it debuts on the PVOD market. Pitt will soon be seen in The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, which is set for an IMAX run before its Netflix debut this December. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

Heart of the Beast