MovieChat Forums > Cry Freedom (1987) Discussion > Why did this fail at the box office?

Why did this fail at the box office?

posted 8 years ago by saugoof
1 reply | jump to latest

I was living in Europe when this came out and I remember it being very big at the time. So I was really surprised to see that this was such a box office bomb in the US. Does anyone have any clues for the reasons for this? Was this badly marketed? I don't think it's anything to do with the movie's quality. It generally gets very favourable reviews from critics as well as audiences. It was covering a hot-button topic at the time, so why did it ultimately fail?

[–] sabita (20) 7 years ago

My take is that this film should have focused on Steve Biko. I felt that it gave too much weight to Donald Woods' story, as the Brave White Liberal who tells the world about Biko's murder. A bio pic about a South African activist then morphs into a thriller about Woods trying to escape from the apartheid regime. The power of the narrative is watered down, as I fear, the makers of the film did not feel that it would connect with audiences unless you have a white character's arc involved. A similar argument could be made against Mississippi Burning. By the way, this film never gets shown on television.