Reggie Ponder – The Reel Critic

Box Office Mojo reports “Opening at 1,789 theaters, Beyond the Lights bombed with $2.3 million. For the weekend, it’s on track to wrap up in the $6-to-$7 million range.”

I’ve concluded that Blacks do not like Romantic Dramas, especially ones with an all Black cast. I know I’m not always right but the poor performance of Beyond The Lights really caught me off guard. I thought that after the success of Best Man Holiday, a film like Beyond The Lights might do pretty well. I was wrong and here are my Top 5 reasons why:
1) Best Man Holiday was a comedy with drama not a drama with a few ha ha moments like Beyond The Lights

2)Love and Basketball only made $28 million in 2000 but the problem is the film’s budget was $20 million so the film didn’t break even. Why would I have expected Beyond The Lights to do any better?

3) GuGu Mbatha-Raw beat out Beyonce and Rihanna for the role and casting one of them might have been better for ticket sales. Celebrity sells and few people know Mbatha-Raw

4) Black on Black Love is so rarely seen on the big screen consumers didn’t know what to do with this film. They were confused. Is this a date movie, a girls night out movie, a young people’s movie or an old folks film. Folks just didn’t know if they were the target.

5) Dumb and Dumber To was by far a better movie option. It had iconic characters, great marketing, bigger budget and funny material. Yeah, there was some real drama in Beyond The Lights but a romantic drama will never win over a funny celebrity driven film, right.

Bonus reason: Many people complain about Tyler perry Movies but secretly those folks just want to laugh and can’t resist a man in drag. Even Perry’s poorly attended movies have done better than Beyond The Lights. Perry has only one film as a writer/director to open under $10 million.

So let’s face it, Beyond The Lights was doomed to flicker out long before they turned on the lights on the set.