MovieChat Forums > Jackie Brown (1997) Discussion > This is My Favorite QT Movie...But Evide...

This is My Favorite QT Movie...But Evidently it Made a LOT Less Than Pulp Fiction

posted 2 years ago by roger1 (4046)
4 replies | jump to latest

(Formerly ecarle.)

I like this the best out of all the QT movies so far(and he swears he's only got one left) for a lot of reasons.

Its laid back and leisurely pace, with the characters shooting the breeze a lot. (I think that Roger Ebert compared it to the similarly long -- but not overly long -- Rio Bravo a favorite movie of QTs.)

The middle-aged characters -- in love(Grier and Forster) and in conflict(Forster, DeNiro, and Samuel).

The nifty twists at the end. And then the ending.

But it turns out that Jackie Brown evidently made a LOT less than the big QT hit before it -- Pulp Fiction.

Per that person who reports on box office here at moviechat(stars and directors), we are told:

Pulp Fiction: Came in at Number 10 for 1994.

Jackie Brown: Came in at Number 58 for 1997.

That's quite a drop. Evidently a lot of Pulp Fiction fans either had no interest in seeing Jackie Brown at all -- or in not seeing it more than once.

QT then took an entire 6 years off before returning with "Kill Bill 1 and 2." Something changed in him -- his movies got more action-packed and were certainly more violent than Jackie Brown(though Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were certainly more violent than Jackie Brown too.)

What went wrong with Jackie Brown?

Pam Grier and Robert Forster in the leads?(No matter, both were great, particularly Forster, and both got career comebacks, and Forster got the film's sole Oscar nomination for acting..)

The middle-aged leads?(Not necessarily -- QT would stick to middle-aged stars for most of his career -- Sam Jackson, DeNiro, Kurt Russell, Pacino...even Leo and Brad.)

The over-plotty plot? (Maybe.)

Whatever the reasons, its too bad, but it don't matter to me -- I love Jackie Brown the best.

[–] tph890 (490) 2 years ago

I don’t think anything went wrong with Jackie Brown. It’s a great film.
One thing that comes to mind though, that might have contributed to a slight disconnect with what fans/audiences were expecting vs. what they got is that Jackie Brown is (I think) the only film that Tarantino directly adapted from an existing work. So maybe he restrained himself a bit, made an effort at cohering to the original mood supplied by the novel, and that energy came through in the final product?
Because me personally, I feel like this is his most calm, most plaintive film. And that’s what I love about it. A good slow burn, and not hyper violent (though I really don’t mind his ridiculous excessive use of graphic violence because said violence always seems to border on the realms of comical rather than morbidity).
And yeah, the acting/casting was great all around.
This film is super re-watchable, it just isn’t for everybody (in my humble opinion).
Also, it is the Tarantino film that I recommend to people who may not like his other movies.

[–] Melton (5571) 2 years ago

It’s an oddity because it’s what you’d expect as a director’s final film, not his second. It’s more slow and thoughtful and doesn’t have the manic rebel energy of the rest of his ouvre. It also stands out as being his only film adapted from someone else’s material.

I like it fine, but I go to Tarantino to see a crazy magpie genius taking me on a wild ride of transgressive language and violence, and breaking all of the storytelling rules while still totally absorbing me with unique characters spouting endlessly quotable dialogue.

Jackie Brown is an unusually conservative work from a born anarchist.

[–] capuchin (3366) 2 years ago

According to Wikipedia, it made $74.7m at the box office against a budget of $12m. So it wasn't a failure.

Of course, it was no Pulp Fiction. ($213.9 against an $8.5m budget), but Pulp Fiction was a rare, zeitgeist-defining pop culture phenomenon that must have massively outdone expectations. I doubt anything Tarantino followed Pulp Fiction with would have captured audiences in quite the same way. He didn't have a film that outdid Pulp Fiction at the box office until Inglourious Basterds.

And in terms of box office against budget, Jackie Brown was no more of a failure than The Hateful Eight or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (both of which made approximately three to four times their budget back). And, of course, Grind House / Death Proof was an outright failure, that probably didn't break even after you factor in marketing.

Jackie Brown clearly didn't meet expectations, especially not Tarantino's own, which is why he's never done anything quite like it again. You're right, I think: it changed him a bit. I think had it not been perceived as a failure against the behemoth that was Pulp Fiction, he may have made another Elmore Leonard adaptation -- he talked at the time about wanting to make another one, but then again Tarantino talks a lot about projects he'd like to make that never materialise. He may not have leaned so heavily into action / genre films. Who knows?

Anyway, it's certainly one of his best films -- and at this distance that's all that really matters.

[–] roger1 (4046) 2 years ago

OP here.

I appreciate the responses and I think they put me in an odd position.

"Jackie Brown" remains my favorite QT film...though he supposedly has one more to do..) so I'm not AGAINST it at all. I think rather I was surprised -- given how huge a hit Pulp Fiction was(on "indiefilm terms" that hardly did Forrest Gump numbers) that Jackie Brown came in so low on our "Moviechat experts" grosses chart.

So I was wondering "why such a drop?" Did QT's young fans simply find the film not up their alley? Were there fewer repeat viewings?

I dunno. But I know I DO love the film for all the ways that it is DIFFERENT than every other QT film we have.

And a $74.7 million gross on a $12 million budget is certainly successful...not to mention all the years the movie has lived on -- cable, DVDs, streaming. Its like QT said about Rio Bravo(which Jackie Brown resembles in amiable length and middle aged heroes)..."there is that first week it is out...and then it is all those years you can re-watch it in pleasure.)