Why Online Controversies Won’t Make Or Break Olivia Wilde’s ‘Don’t Worry Darling’

In another example of Warner Bros. getting dinged for doing the right thing (like, say, giving a promising not-a-white-guy director $20-$30 million to make an original, star-driven, adult-skewing, R-rated studio programmer), their big Fall flick Don’t Worry Darling has become embroiled in distinctly online controversy. The good news is that if the Olivia Wilde-directed movie is commercial, well-reviewed and appealing to the masses, the online handwringing won’t affect those outside the bubble. I have not seen the film, which stars Florence Pugh, Chris Pine and Harry Styles, so I cannot speak to its quality or its commercial appeal. However, history has shown that if audiences want to see a movie, then no number of online scandals will change that. If they don’t, then this is even more irrelevant.

There have been rumors for months about director Olivia Wilde and star Florence Pugh not getting along on set. Wilde herself has continued (in recent interviews) to discuss the non-story of getting served court papers during her CinemaCon appearance. I briefly worked as a process server a lifetime ago, and the serving party has no control or interest (if no laws are broken) in how or when those papers get served. Wilde’s statements about firing troubled actor Shia LaBeouf to protect her cast have been contradicted by both the actor himself and a video Wilde shot where she arguably tries to convince him to remain in the film despite Pugh’s (“Ms. Flo”) alleged objections. It’s excellent for ‘people are reacting’ media coverage, but will it hurt the movie when it opens next month?

Ryan Gosling’s First Man didn’t bomb ($105 million on a $59 million budget) because of conservative pundits complaining about the (false) lack of American flags featured in the Damien Chazalle-directed Neil Armstrong flick. The slow and melancholy astronaut drama was less crowd-pleasing than Apollo 13 and adult audiences wanting to check out an adult-skewing movie already had A Star Is Born on their dance card. Lightyear didn’t flop because of online handwringing about a same-sex kiss between two married grandmothers. It stumbled because nobody wanted a disconnected Buzz Lightyear origin story flick. Nor did online discourse about colorism impact the already doomed In the Heights. Peter Rabbit became embroiled in an opening weekend controversy about food poisoning and still quadrupled its $25 million domestic debut and earned $350 million global.

Might the current controversies, some of which are unforced errors and self-inflicted wounds (as opposed to mere uncorroborated backstage gossip that plays into certain misogynistic tropes), help the movie when it opens on September 23? Maybe, but one of the big problems facing the entertainment industry as a whole is that there’s little cross-platform consumption. By that, I mean folks who loved James Gunn’s Marvel movie (Guardians of the Galaxy) don’t then seek out his DC Films flick (The Suicide Squad). Audiences loving and sharing Saturday Night Live’s David S. Pumpkins sketch in late 2016 don’t then flock to see Tom Hanks’ Inferno. And the consumers who turned Olivia Rodrigo into one of pop music’s biggest stars don’t then rush to watch Disney+’s High School Musical The Musical The Series.

We’re a long way from when real-life tabloid headlines about Brad Pitt allegedly dumping Jennifer Aniston after falling for Angelina Jolie on the set of Mr. And Mrs. Smith helped power that original, star+concept theatrical to a $50 million domestic debut and $487 million worldwide. However, awareness is one of the more significant problems facing non-tentpole/non-franchise films. Audiences who don’t see non-tentpoles in theaters don’t see trailers for such movies. Audiences who don’t watch conventional commercial television don’t see the television spots. If the scandalous coverage can put the film on audiences’ radar, that’s a start. Maybe the most significant boost won’t be the gossip and conjecture but rather than film’s buzzy trailer playing before theatrical showings of Sony’s leggy and well-liked Where the Crawdads Sing over the last six weeks.

That $24 million, adult-skewing melodrama has earned $81 million domestic from a $17 million debut and $101 million worldwide. The Daisy Edgar-Jones melodrama, based on an extremely popular novel, was the first big movie aimed at adult women and older girls since Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum’s The Lost City in late March. There are complicated reasons for that. Lots of female-led programmers ended up as streaming cannon fodder. Meanwhile, studios held their biggest white guy-led biggies until this summer. The advantage that Where the Crawdads had in being the only game in town could be shared by Don’t Worry Darling. The latter is an original, R-rated and overtly sexual thriller. Crawdads is almost comically wholesome. That demographically friendly audiences saw the trailer may still provide a considerable boost.

It’s not unlike when older, irregular moviegoers flocked to Paramount and Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick and saw the buzzy second trailer for Warner Bros. Discovery’s Elvis, which was implicitly targeting older and irregular moviegoers. In the before-times, the best marketing was often just a great trailer playing before a demographically similar smash. Think the Deep Impact teaser playing before Titanic, the DMV-specific Zootopia trailer playing with The Force Awakens and the Lights Out trailer playing with The Conjuring 2. That Elvis got a boost ($145 million domestic and $276 million worldwide-and-counting) from being trailered with Top Gun: Maverick shows that some pre-Covid strategies still work. If the audiences watching the Don’t Worry Darling trailer with Where the Crawdads Sing and Nope like what they see, that’s half the battle.

More important than any online controversies is whether the film supplies most of the five essential elements (ensemble cast, marquee director, easy elevator pitch, good reviews and a promise of cinematic escapism) for a successful theatrical programmer. Since it only cost around $30 million (partially due to Covid-related expenses), it doesn’t have to break records to break even. Even earnings on par with A Simple Favor ($53 million domestic and $97 million worldwide) would be acceptable, although grosses akin to The Girl on the Train ($75 million/$173 million) would be better. WBD is better than anyone at turning less-conventional event films (Magic Mike, American Sniper, It, Joker, Dune, etc.) into genuine smash hits. Unless Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling is lousy and/or distinctly un-crowd-pleasing, I wouldn’t bet against it.