Billy Eichner spoke about Bros’ polarizing marketing strategy in a new interview.
On September 30, the highly anticipated LGBTQ+ romantic comedy hit theaters in the United States.
Written by Eichner and Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors), the latter also directing the film, Bros received rave reviews from critics and even earned a new 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, despite critical acclaim, the film landed in fourth place at the box office and earned only $4.8 million in ticket sales.
During a panel at the New Yorker Festival with LGBTQ+ legend Harvey Fierstein, Eichner opened up about the film’s performance and defended its polarizing marketing strategy (per Deadline).
“There really wasn’t a plan for this movie as far as marketing and stuff,” he said in response to Fierstein’s criticism of Universal’s promotional campaign.
“[Universal] Couldn’t have been more supportive every step of the way. But it was also a new type of film for them.
“When Hollywood takes over a century to release an R-rated gay romantic comedy and to make such a wide release with a movie like this, there’s really no blueprint to follow.”
Before landing in theaters, the film was marketed as the first gay romantic comedy released by a major studio.
While Universal hoped the landmark achievement would be a “motivator,” Echiner said the film is about more than its promotional commercials.
“The marketing isn’t the movie, and the tweets aren’t the movie, and the talk — especially to those who haven’t seen the movie — isn’t the movie,” he said.
“The movie is the movie, and the movie is the one that makes a lot of people happy and that I’m really proud of.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the Billy On The Street star expressed the importance of having an all-LGBTQ+ cast lead the film against straight movie stars.
“We could have easily cast Chris Evans as Luke McFarlane. But we didn’t because, for us, it was important to give a number of openly LGBT actors a chance to star in a film even if they weren’t movie stars. he explained.
Toward the end of the roundtable, Echiner doubled down on his October 2 Twitter statements in which he blamed homophobia for Bros’ lackluster box office performance.
“Homophobia is a bigger issue than how it relates to this stupid rom-com. But do I think that’s a factor? Yeah, in some parts of the country I think it was a factor,” he said.
“Although, to be honest, we didn’t really make the movie for homophobes anyway. It’s an R-rated gay romantic comedy.
“It was never meant as a movie to try to convince people who don’t like gay people that we’re normal, sweet and cuddly, and that we can love. It’s so not that movie.
Bros will be released in the UK on October 28.