# Is "Ad Astra" bombing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 21, 2019, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604 "2019-09-21T07:52:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/121 "2019-10-05T23:14:49Z")
So it became clear quite early on (with the antimatter-thingy all the way on Neptune somehow causing power surges on Earth) that this really wasn’t trying for Sci-fi, much less hard Sci-fi, but instead, only used the setting as a backdrop for the psychological/character drama of Brad Pitt’s character coming to terms with the legacy of his father. Which would’ve been perfectly fine, and a good enough reason for me to ignore the overall terrible science, but that completely exhausted itself in trite commonplace armchair psychology. By voiceover. So he has to go deep into space from where the malign influence of his father that threatens everything he holds dear originates, then has to literally let him go… Yeah, either I’m missing something, or this thought it was a lot deeper than it actually was. Still, it looked spectacular, and many of the individual scenes where amazing, both visually, and from the glimpses they offered of the larger world and Brad Pitt’s character. They just never really came together for me. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2019, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/122 "2019-10-06T00:53:54Z")
> [@eunoia](#): > > Gone With the Wind may even be in the public domain No. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/123 "2019-10-06T13:44:19Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Friday is the first day they cut the theater count by 500 screens. That’s neither a bad sign or a good sign. ??? So they cut screens. And this alters the fact that the money coming in is dropping at a rate that implies no legs at all means what??? > [@eunoia](#): > > Gone With the Wind may even be in the public domain, that wasn’t my point. Once we elide towards “Is Ad Astra an _artistic_ bomb?” or “Did Return of the Jedi ever really turn a profit?” there’s no convincing some people. As already noted, _GWtW_ is not remotely public domain. That you think it could be is quite surprising. _Ad Astra_ is _not_ an artistic failure. It is certified fresh at Rotten Tomatoes at 83% with top critics approval at 89%! Those are some pretty good numbers there. OTOH, RT has a fan rating for it at 40%. Yikes city. As I previously noted, it has a CinemaScore of B- which is not good at all. _Artistically_ it rates very well. But the audiences are generally not loving it. And _that_ means the money side is going to look poorish. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2019, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/124 "2019-10-06T14:34:49Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > ??? So they cut screens. And this alters the fact that the money coming in is dropping at a rate that implies no legs at all means what??? My point was you picked the only day-over-day comparison when they happened to have cut theaters. Its _per-theater_ drop was 50%, which is about average for a film going into the third weekend. This film doesn’t have “no legs at all”, but it doesn’t have great legs either. ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2019, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/125 "2019-10-06T16:15:37Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > As already noted, _GWtW_ is not remotely public domain. That you think it could be is quite surprising. Again, that wasn’t the point, but nice to know it’s still making profits over 80 years after it was released. > [@ftg](#): > > _Artistically_ it rates very well. But the audiences are generally not loving it. It’s almost as if critics and audiences were working for different people! ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2019, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/126 "2019-10-06T16:17:48Z")
More “comparables” lol. [https://i.imgur.com/fEOu20c.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/fEOu20c.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/127 "2019-10-06T21:55:02Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > My point was you picked the only day-over-day comparison when they happened to have cut theaters. Its _per-theater_ drop was 50%, which is about average for a film going into the third weekend. This film doesn’t have “no legs at all”, but it doesn’t have great legs either. Again, so what? Films lose theaters over time. Some faster than others. But the bottom line is box office in this context. Losing theaters is an _effect_ of declining ticket sales, not a _cause_ (in most cases). If it was selling tickets all over the place it might have gained screens. If was an all-out bomb it would lose more. Per-screen average is a useful data point in predictions at the _very_ beginning. Esp. for slow rollout films (which this isn’t). But we are well past that point. I don’t see anything special about _Ad Astra_’s screen losses for a film doing this poorly that sticks out compared to … comparables. **eunoia** : cool image. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2019, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/128 "2019-10-07T12:53:32Z")
I finally got around to seeing it this weekend, and it will probably get the theater run it deserves. Outstanding SFX, lots of space machinery for geeks like me, but wooden acting and too many ridiculous plot points - for the latter, even more so than _Interstellar_. Fair enough? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2019, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/129 "2019-10-07T15:13:21Z")
> [@vertizontal](#): > > What happens when we attempt to go To the Stars? > I think the movie tried to present these 3 sub-points: > > [quoted spoilers redacted] This is a great summary of the film, **vertizontal**! I do have one nitpick of your summary: the film had nothing to do with going “To the Stars.” Instead, it was a glorified SETI project set on Neptune for reasons that were never explained. > [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > I thought about starting a category in the “Movie Marathon” thread over in Thread Games. It was going to be “Worst Movie Titles in History”. I was going to start it off with “August: Osage County”, which sounds like an interminable flick about downtrodden characters straight out of a Faulkner knock-off, trying to survive the oppressive heat of late summer in the south. “Ad Astra” is even worse. Who the hell came up with _that_? Exactly. What did this title have to do with the film? > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I finally got around to seeing it this weekend, and it will probably get the theater run it deserves. Outstanding SFX, lots of space machinery for geeks like me, but wooden acting and too many ridiculous plot points - for the latter, even more so than _Interstellar_. Fair enough? I agree with this as well. My wife and I saw the movie over the weekend. She loved it. I did not. I liked the effects and the world building, but could not get past the scientific illiteracy of the film. I can watch and enjoy a film like _Star Wars_ and understand that it is not science fiction. Instead, it is space fantasy. _Star Trek_ purports to be SF, but is certainly not hard science fiction. It’s also basically space fantasy. I liked _Gravity_ and loved _The Martian_, both of which were marketed as hard SF. Both had a few plot holes, but were at least trying to be scientifically plausible. _Ad Astra_ purports to be hard SF, but wasn’t even trying to be scientifically plausible. As far as I’m concerned, it falls into the same category as _The Core_ and _2012_. I couldn’t get past that, and so did not like _Ad Astra_ at all. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2019, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/130 "2019-10-07T15:57:48Z")
Saw it this weekend on a whim. It was good but wasn’t really what I expected. It had elements of hard sci-fi, adventure shoot-em-up, and noir, but didn’t really excel at any of them. I had a lot of nitpicks with the plot. I saw it in a theater but other than the low-orbit shots of Earth and the shots of Neptune, it really wasn’t beautiful like Interstellar was. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/131 "2019-10-07T19:54:37Z")
> [@robby](#): > > I do have one nitpick of your summary: the film had nothing to do with going “To the Stars.” Instead, it was a glorified SETI project set on Neptune for reasons that were never explained. > [@](#): > > Exactly. What did this title have to do with the film? 😕 The title “Ad Astra” \*literally \*means “To the Stars.” ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2019, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/132 "2019-10-07T22:53:18Z")
> [@robby](#): > > I do have one nitpick of your summary: the film had nothing to do with going “To the Stars.” Instead, it was a glorified SETI project set on Neptune for reasons that were never explained. > [@robby](#): > > Exactly. What did this title have to do with the film? > [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > 😕 The title “Ad Astra” \*literally \*means “To the Stars.” I know. What does this have to do with this film? The film was about a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project located on Neptune. Nobody in the film went to the stars or left our solar system. Instead, the scientist on Neptune found a decided lack of evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. He did evidently collect extensive data on [extrasolar planets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanet) (which he said were uniformly bereft of intelligent life and he was therefore uninterested in), but this seems like a pretty thin basis for naming the film “To the Stars.” _Star Trek_ (the original series) is about traveling beyond our solar system and was pitched to NBC by Gene Roddenberry as “[Wagon Train to the Stars](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WagonTrainToTheStars).” Instead of _Star Trek_, Roddenberry could have called his series _Ad Astra_ and it would have been more appropriately named than this film, which quite literally had nothing to do with the idea of traveling to the stars. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/133 "2019-10-08T02:00:36Z")
The space station that the main character’s father was on was not literally on Neptune. Instead, it was either orbiting the sun at about the same distance from the sun as Neptune is, or was in orbit around Neptune. And I didn’t have a problem with the title, even though no one actually traveled outside the Solar System. The project that the main character’s father was working on was literally looking and listening to the stars for signs of intelligent life. And that the story stayed within the Solar System was, perhaps, a sign of its relative realism, since travel outside the Solar System by manned missions is outside the realm of possibility at present and perhaps the near future. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/134 "2019-10-08T12:05:27Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The space station that the main character’s father was on was not literally on Neptune. Instead, it was either orbiting the sun at about the same distance from the sun as Neptune is, or was in orbit around Neptune. Right, the SETI space station was not literally on Neptune; it was instead in the vicinity of Neptune, as you say. Since Neptune is an [ice giant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_giant), it’s not actually possible to land on Neptune. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/135 "2019-10-08T13:34:04Z")
Now we know Tommy Lee Jones didn’t stop at the Moon at the end of _Space Cowboys_. He kept on going. That’s all I could think of when I saw Donald Sutherland in a spacesuit - “They’re putting the band back together”. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/136 "2019-10-08T13:50:38Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It’s up to $92 million but that is as of a week ago; it’ll clear $100 million pretty easily. > > Whether that is a “bomb” depends on how you look at it. It will not lose money. I think, however, that it’s fair to say Fox was hoping for more from a sci-fi spectacular starring one of the most famous actors alive. In terms of opportunity cost, one could argue their production money would have been better spent elsewhere. Just to throw in one more offbeat comparison: consider THE MUMMY. No, the one with Tom Cruise. You know, the one where they _hoped_ for a hit — but according to Box Office Mojo all they got was $409m on a $125m budget, which provoked any number of well-deserved jeers and apparently caused the filmmakers to scupper other movies that would’ve been in the same vein. Do we figure AD ASTRA will make back 2x its budget? (2.75x? 3.25x?) ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/137 "2019-10-08T17:22:43Z")
Interview with the co-writer (admits it is more “per Aspera” than “Ad Astra”) > **[Ad Astra: The Movie!](https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/0925-2019-2019-ethan-gross-ad-astra)** > > Brad Pitt sets out across the solar system to save Earth in the new space epic. Host Mat Kaplan enjoys a far-reaching conversation with co-screenwriter of Ad Astra that touches on the film’s meaning, the mythic journey of its protagonist, its... Brian ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/138 "2019-10-08T22:51:23Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Just to throw in one more offbeat comparison: consider THE MUMMY. No, the one with Tom Cruise. You know, the one where they _hoped_ for a hit — but according to Box Office Mojo all they got was $409m on a $125m budget, which provoked any number of well-deserved jeers and apparently caused the filmmakers to scupper other movies that would’ve been in the same vein. > > Do we figure AD ASTRA will make back 2x its budget? (2.75x? 3.25x?) Variety had THE MUMMY at $190m in production cost plus $100m in marketing (which wouldn’t surprise me). But even at $125m, you have the conundrum of foreign box office…of that roughly $400m, only 80m was domestic, so figure half of 80m and a quarter of 320m gets Universal about 100m to cover 125m plus their share of marketing. They lost a lot of money. > **[Inside ‘The Mummy’s’ Troubles: Tom Cruise Had Excessive Control (EXCLUSIVE)](https://variety.com/2017/film/news/the-mummy-meltdown-tom-cruise-1202465742/)** > > As Hollywood is playing the blame game on what went wrong on “The Mummy,” many fingers are pointing to Tom Cruise. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/139 "2019-10-08T23:15:51Z")
> [@robby](#): > > Right, the SETI space station was not literally on Neptune; it was instead in the vicinity of Neptune, as you say. Since Neptune is an [ice giant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_giant), it’s not actually possible to land on Neptune. But it was still unnecessary IMHO. Or if it was necessary, I don’t get why it had to be a multi-year manned mission. Could they not just set it up and go, with a combination of automation and remote (albeit time-delayed) control from Earth? To add another nitpick, the whole rescue mission en route to Mars seemed implausible. I mean, how do the physics of that work out? Was Baboon Station also on its way to Mars? If so, did it just happen to leave the moon (or at least pass the moon en route Mars) a short time ahead of Pitt’s mission? Or were they just floating there between Earth and Mars, in which case, 1) what are the odds, really, of them being so close to their path (space is huge), and 2) just how much extra fuel did Pitt’s Rocket have to be able to accelerate/decelerate first to come alongside the station, and then to resume their trajectory to Mars? Yet another reason why I don’t think this movie is worthy of being labeled as hard sci-fi, as much as it pretends to be. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604/140 "2019-10-08T23:39:11Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Variety had THE MUMMY at $190m in production cost plus $100m in marketing (which wouldn’t surprise me). But even at $125m, you have the conundrum of foreign box office…of that roughly $400m, only 80m was domestic, so figure half of 80m and a quarter of 320m gets Universal about 100m to cover 125m plus their share of marketing. > > They lost a lot of money. > > ['The Mummy': How Tom Cruise Took Control of Universal's Flailing Movie](https://variety.com/2017/film/news/the-mummy-meltdown-tom-cruise-1202465742/) But that’s my point: apply that metric to _this_ movie likewise. Figure, as you say, half of AD ASTRA’s domestic take (currently, under $44m) and a quarter of the foreign (under $68m) and as of today we’d be at, what, a little under $39m? Wiki puts its budget at somewhere between $80m and $100m (which, as you say, presumably doesn’t include marketing); so, what, how much more could AD ASTRA make and still, _by that same logic,_ fail to break even? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ad-astra-bombing/840604.md?page=8)