Now, we all know that Shia LaBeouf hasn’t exactly taken a traditional career route over the last few years. From Transformers to life coaching via very confusing art installations, he has certainly known how to keep us guessing.
But his latest move hasn’t exactly paid off as he might have hoped.
His new movie, Man Down, opened to a very limited release in the UK, but has since been pulled from the country after selling just one ticket on its opening weekend.
That’s right. One. It made a total of $11.51.
Admittedly, I don’t think expectation was high for the movie’s gross profit anyway because it was only opened in one venue – the Reel Cinema in Burnley, in the north-east of England.
Ever keen to push the boundaries, the film was given a limited cinema release in the US as well, and has been simultaneously released via on-demand services.
So maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised that it hasn’t sold cinema tickets if people can watch it at home?
The film itself is about a war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, returning from war to find his wife and son are missing. Happy stuff, hey?
It teams Shia up with director Dito Montiel, who he previously worked with on A Guide to Recognising Your Saints (comfortably one of Shia’s best performances BTW), and LaBeouf has described the film almost like “therapy”.
“This script landed on his lap at just the right time, and he came to my house when I was at a really low place and offered it to me like therapy, like, ‘Here’s a healing process where we can jump into together and get well,’” LaBeouf told the publication. “It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, jump on this job,’ or ‘Jump into this movie.’ It felt like we were going to grow up.”
Heavy.
The film hasn’t exactly taken off with critics or audiences, but it’s at least good to see Shia starting to get himself back on track a little bit, after a bizarre few years for the former child star.
Who knows, maybe a few weeks digging some holes would be good for him now?
