As previously noted, Tom Hardy has not been participating in the advanced press for The Bikeriders, which opens next week. Well, no more! Tom Hardy was present and accounted for at a gala screening in London (the film previously premiered in the UK during last year’s BFI London Film Festival) earlier this week.
Tom was joined by co-stars Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Boyd Holbrook (my beloved), and Toby Wallace, as well as director Jeff Nichols. (Yesterday there was a promotional event in Rome, and Austin was there with Jeff but no Tom or Jodie.)
One thing I love about Jeff Nichols during this press tour is how blatantly he’s gloating about casting Austin Butler. He has been talking for months about casting Austin pretty much as soon as they met, due to Austin’s general handsomeness and overall Movie Star vibe. Nichols gets to gloat because he cast Austin BEFORE Elvis came out. That’s going to be a critical demarcation in the story of Austin Butler’s rise—who was on board before Elvis, and who came after.
One thing about this film, though, is I didn’t realize the budget is an estimated $40 million. That’s a lot for an R-rated, character-driven, period-piece drama, especially one without recognizable IP attached (I know The Bikeriders exists as a photo collection, let’s not pretend the average person has heard of it like, say, “Elvis Presley”). This makes The Bikeriders one of those classic mid-budget movies that hardly gets made anymore…because they stopped doing well at the box office in the 2000s.
For instance, Focus released Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City last year, which had a $25 million budget, an all-star ensemble cast, a big-name director, and made $54 million. Not a bad result for an R-rated, character-driven comedy-drama, but that $54 million looks better against a sub-$30 million budget. Anyway, the middle of the road is the part of the box office we need to come back. The highs and lows of the blockbuster class are easier to weather when films like The Bikeriders can be reliably, moderately profitable. No pressure!
But back to Tom Hardy. With one week to go, he’s lending his own Movie Star appeal (yes, Tom Hardy is a capital-letter Movie Star) to The Bikeriders in hopes of making it the sleeper hit of the summer. Focus Features is certainly splashing out like they think they have a winner on their hands—press tours that cross two oceans are not cheap, even though they’re not travelling with the full complement of the ensemble cast. Although would it have killed him and Boyd Holbrook to don a suit? It bugs me to no end when the women in the cast show up to events dressed to the nines—Jodie Comer is in Vivienne Westwood, that color is fantastic on her—and the dudes look like they barely remembered to wear clean clothes, at best.
