The film starring Joaquin Phoenix was such a flop that the director's father advised him not to write another movie
The director of the film starring Joaquin Phoenix suffered such a huge failure that his father advised him against writing the script for his next film.
Ari Aster is a highly regarded director with an interesting filmography. In addition to directing, he has also written the screenplays for many of his movies, although after the huge flop of Beau Is Afraid in 2023, the filmmaker wondered whether he should continue writing his own films. Or rather, these doubts were planted in his mind by his own father.
Ari Aster was recently a guest on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, where he talked about his failure two years ago and his parents' reaction to it. His father was quite critical, while his mother remained supportive.
When Beau Is Afraid flopped, my dad did tell me, “Uh, maybe you shouldn’t write the next one.” He might’ve been right. [My mom’s] very supportive. I think, you know, certain things she likes more than others… I’m lucky in that sense.
The director added that he was pretty sad because of how Beau Is Afraid was received. He was saddened by the situation with the production, but he was comforted by the fact that people reached out to him to show their support. This helped him cope with his disappointment.
I was pretty sad that it was, like, so maligned. There are a lot of people who reached out to tell me that they loved it…that helped, but yeah, no, it was a bummer because it was a huge, you know, it lost money, and critically, I wouldn’t say it was, like, reviled, but it was definitely, like, there was no consensus whatsoever.
Beau Is Afraid is one of A24's biggest flops. With an estimated budget of $35 million, the production grossed only $12 million at the box office, so it was far from breaking even. But despite this failure and his father's discouraging words, Ari Aster decided to write the script for his next film. Eddington, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Emma Stone, hit theaters on July 18, 2025.
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Author: Edyta Jastrzebska
A graduate of journalism and social communication as well as cultural studies. She started at Gamepressure.com as one of the newspeople in the films department. Currently she oversees the Gamepressure movie&TV newsroom. She excels in the field of film and television, both in reality-based and fantasy themes. Keeps up with industry trends, but in her free time she prefers to watch less known titles. Has a complicated relationship with popular ones, which is why she only gets convinced about many of them when the hype around them subsides. Loves to spend her evenings not only watching movies, series, reading books and playing video games, but also playing text RPGs, which she has been into for several years.
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