Why In the Heights Bombed Opening Weekend
In the Heights arrived with massive fanfare on social media. The adaptation of Lin Manuel Miranda’s 2009 Broadway hit has been heavily anticipated amongst Latino media, Latinx activists, and Broadway enthusiasts for two years, since the movie’s release was postponed due to the pandemic. It was widely expected to have a huge opening, and its supporters saw the film’s inevitable success as a watershed moment for Latino’s in terms of representation in Hollywood.
And then it grossed $11 million dollars.
Some have blamed the disappointing figure on it being released simultaneously on HBO Max, but such a release didn’t hurt Godzilla vs. Kong, which pulled in $31 million using the same release strategy, or A Quiet Place Part II, which had the biggest pandemic-era opening with $47 million. On social media, particularly in the theater and Latinx spaces I follow, the blame has focused on there not being any Afro-Latino actors in lead roles, implying that more people would have been enthusiastic had the representation checked off more boxes. I feel both of these reasons are wrong, the former because other movies have done better with the same release strategy, and the latter because it portrays a common internet argument that has no basis in reality and exists to further a perspective that if you offend three people on Twitter, that signifies a mobilized and widespread boycott of a product.
What follows are the reasons I believe In the Heights flopped, at least initially, from least important to most important. I invite a healthy discussion, or at the very least, a pissed off rant, about these points.
The story isn’t compelling. Do you know what In the Heights is about? I assume if you do, you’re probably a theater kid, a Broadway fan, or someone who saw the trailer and decided to look up the film’s Wikipedia page. Speaking of the trailer, it goes to great lengths NOT to tell you what the story is about, and I presume that is for a reason stated in several reviews of the film, namely, that there isn’t much of a story. The trailer instead focuses on the neighborhood, the song numbers, makes some mentions of hopes and dreams, being seen by the world, and other sentimental, hokey inspirational quotes that sound meaningful, but when you scratch the surface aren’t saying much. The trailer also includes the dumbest line of dialogue in at least a decade, when the main character says, “They’re trying to get rid of the dreamers!” — what does that line even mean? Who are the ‘they’ and how exactly are they getting rid of “dreamers”? The trailer doesn’t depict anybody stopping the characters from doing anything. Is there a guy in a fedora chomping on a cigar in some office building scribbling on a white board and barking at his assistant “That’s it Cheryl, we must put a stop to these happy Latinos and get rid of the dreamers!” Which of course he says while shaking his fist and biting down on that mammoth cigar. I doubt that’s the case, so seriously, who is trying to stop people from having aspirations? Aspirations exist in your head. Who are these thought police cracking down on an entire neighborhood, and are they using some sort of technology to stun people into zombie-like stupors robbing them of all will to be anything other than a utilitarian carcass? Oh wait, that would actually be an interesting plot, which this movie doesn’t have. Instead, it’s about a group of people who become obsessed about finding out the winner of a recent lottery drawing. That’s right, its about winning the lottery, and what you would do with that money. Which is a fine premise. There are stories that have done a lot with even less, but for me at least, people winning the lottery is in the category of “People I couldn’t give an iota of a fuck about”, and that includes when they sing and dance.
Washington where? I love New York City. I consider it a second home, and most of my dearest friends live there. I know what Washington Heights is because I know a lot of Latinos in NYC and they talk about it. Though I must admit, because of its location on the northern tip of Manhattan, away from the most interesting things in the city, I’ve never gone there. I prefer Harlem and Spanish Harlem, the West Village, and the Lower East Side. But I do know of it, and it sounds like a pretty cool neighborhood. People in NYC are many things: dynamic, ambitious, proud, etc. but more than anything else — they are a people who think the world revolves around NYC, and everyone outside of NYC knows as much about the city as them. So going back to the trailer and the promotional material around the movie, it focuses a great deal on the neighborhood of the title, and derives its importance from how it exalts the people of Washington Heights. Which is a great way to get residents there to see your movie, but what about everyone else? Now, my NYC people, this is gonna upset you, but outside of Manhattan (and even inside of Manhattan) most people do not give a shit about Washington Heights. They hear the name and it’s like me talking up Alamosa in my state of Colorado. Does anyone think of Alamosa when they talk about this state? If I released a movie called “In Alamosa” and you live in Boise or Seattle or anywhere the fuck else, including parts of Colorado, you have no idea where that is, why it matters, or why you should care (disclaimer: Alamosa is a lovely town in Southern Colorado and is home to Great Sand Dunes National Park, which is an amazing place, but before I moved to Colorado I had never heard of it). Even in terms of Latino havens in NYC, Washington Heights is not the first place you’d think of. I’d place Spanish Harlem, Loisaida (Lower East Side), and the South Bronx before Washington Heights. And from a national perspective, more people have heard of Spanish Harlem, so why are you promoting this place like non-New Yorkers should feel a special affinity for it? And news flash: Your box office is not solely coming from New York.
The cast. So let’s talk about the cast. This movie has ZERO major stars. The last movie musical headlined by non-white people was Dreamgirls, which was very successful, and starred an American Idol contestant with a huge following (Jennifer Hudson), Jamie Foxx, who had been popular the previous ten years and had just won an Oscar, and the biggest star in the world, the queen herself, Beyonce. Star power fuels box office. This is especially true with a story that has limited appeal. After all, it is about winning a lottery. There is a love story, but it’s not like La La Land where the romance is how the movie was sold. The whole pitch of this film was — look how many Latinos we cast, you’ll watch this, right? You watched Crazy Rich Asians, think of this as Crazy Soon To Be Rich Latinos! But Crazy Rich Asians is a romantic comedy, that genre has a broad appeal, plus the lavish locations (they are rich after all), and you honestly could have cast any group of people and it would be successful. The Asian part didn’t make it a hit. In spite of what is promoted online and in media, the vast majority of people don’t see a movie because of the race of people in the lead roles. Nobody watches the Fast and the Furious franchise because of its diverse cast. They watch it for the fast cars and the action scenes. In the Heights doesn’t cross over with any genres that would attract a wider audience, and it relies instead on Latinos lining up to watch it solely because it has Latinos in the cast. There is a love story, but the promotional material barely mentions it. I’ll give credit to the director for casting a great actor like Anthony Ramos, who should be a star, in a major leading role. He deserves it, but let’s be real, unless you are a theater nerd or have watched Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It reboot, you don’t have a clue who he is. And when was the last time Jimmy Smits brought in huge box office numbers? While I admire the choice to cast unknown or little known actors, in terms of box office, with a story of limited appeal, the film had an uphill battle to climb that would have been helped by a big name star.
Musicals aren’t popular. Here is something you might not know. Between 1978, when Grease came out, and 2002, when Chicago was released, there was exactly ONE live action, traditional musical to be a box office smash, and that was Yentl, a Streisand film made when she was still a major star. Musicals became in the 80s and 90s, a genre dominated by animated films, but we aren’t going to talk about them since when I’m speaking of the musical genre, I mean song and dance set pieces with actual people. I mean the genre as it was originally intended, which is what In the Heights is, and should be compared to, rather than a movie with singing cartoons. The reason Chicago was a phenomenon was that it had been nearly 20 years without a successful, traditional Hollywood musical. No musical had even been nominated for Best Picture since Nashville in 1975. Since 1990, the following movie musicals are the only ones to break $100 million at the box office:
Mamma Mia 1 and 2
Chicago
Dreamgirls
Les Miserables
Into the Woods
La La Land
The Greatest Show on Earth
That is eight movies in 31 years to be box office powerhouses. Eight. And looking at that list, does anything jump out at you? What jumps out at me is that all of these movies have an ensemble of big named stars, they all combine multiple genres (meaning they would attract a varied audience and not just lovers of musicals), and they were promoted to everyone instead of ten people on the internet. Only 1/3 of Americans are on Twitter, and an even smaller percentage of Latinos are on there, and an even smaller percentage of them like musicals. I can’t tell you how many people in my life refuse to see a musical. Think of how many Broadway hits have been turned into movies and flopped. Every few years a Broadway show gets national attention, like The Producers, only to fail in movie form because Broadway serves a small, niche audience. You have to go to New York to see these plays. The Tonys are the lowest rated awards show, which is saying something when ALL award shows have shrunk their audiences exponentially over the last twenty years. If you are in the arts and media, you are aware of these shows, but you forget that we are in a country of 328 million people, the vast majority of whom will never see a Broadway show. Couple that with the fact that if any Lin Manuel show is gonna have crossover appeal, its Hamilton. In the Heights is Lin Manuel’s lesser musical. Lesser known and lesser praised, In the Heights is not the show that he is going to be remembered for. He is the Hamilton guy, so thinking that you could sell people on a show that covers none of the topics of Hamilton, lacks the general appeal of Hamilton, lacks the historical significance of Hamilton, is somehow going to be as much of a success as Hamilton is delusional. And that is before you consider that the genre its in, a musical, is possibly the least popular genre in movies, and has been since the early 80s, in what world was In the Heights guaranteed to be successful? The likelihood was slim. Couple that with an uninteresting story, a marketing campaign that was corny at best and made the assumption that all Latinos like this sort of story, and that by merely casting Latinos it would overcome the unpopularity of musicals, and you have a disaster on your hands. The kind that grosses barely enough in its opening weekend to cover that marketing budget that wasn’t even used well.
In the Heights was an act of hubris on the part of Lin Manuel. I can’t blame him. He did what anyone in his position would do. He’s been a kingmaker for six years, how could he go wrong? But all reigns end eventually, and in hindsight, this one was all too predictable.