One Battle After Another: Why this year's most acclaimed film flopped

Paul Thomas Anderson's political thriller One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, has been critically acclaimed and hailed as a "masterpiece", but won't break even at the box office.

Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another is one of the most acclaimed films of the year, with countless rave reviews hailing it as a masterpiece. What's more, these reviews agree that it isn't one of those eat-your-vegetables masterpieces that are a slog to get through, but which give you a nice, warm, virtuous feeling when they're finished. The critical consensus is that the film is an action-packed, wildly entertaining night at the cinema. "It's impossible to overstate how much fun this thing is," says Max Weiss in Baltimore Magazine. "It's a terrific ride," concludes Nick Bradshaw in Sight & Sound. And the BBC's Caryn James praises a car chase "that makes you feel as if you're on a rollercoaster". Throw in the star power of the film's lead, Leonardo DiCaprio, not to mention his co-stars, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro, and you've got all the makings of a box-office smash.

Or maybe not. Last week, Variety magazine reported that several recent films aimed at a grown-up audience had all missed their targets, among them Roofman and The Smashing Machine. And the biggest loser of them all? You guessed it. "Though the global haul of $140m (£105m) is impressive for a film that's original, R rated and nearly three hours long," said the article, "One Battle requires roughly $300m (£224m) to break even." The film's budget was $130m (£97m), according to its studio, Warner Bros, although some sources calculate that it could be more than $10m higher. With marketing costs stacked on top of that, says Variety, One Battle After Another "is tracking to lose $100 million".

The article does include a statement from Warner Bros, disputing the sums presented by Variety, but no one would argue that One Battle After Another is making a fortune. It's now been in cinemas for four weekends since its release in late September, and according to Box Office Mojo, its takings add up to just $162.5m (£119m). For those of us who would like to see a greater range of unformulaic films in cinemas, such figures look at first to be disheartening, and even perplexing. If audiences don't show up for a rollercoaster ride with Leo, what will they show up for?

The simple answer is a gloomy one: in the post-pandemic era, when so many films are available to stream, it does seem that nothing except IP-based blockbusters and horror films can tempt large numbers of paying customers into the multiplex. But that's not the whole story. From another perspective, the One Battle After Another situation can be seen as a cause for celebration.

"I think the film is doing phenomenally well," Charles Gant, box-office editor at Screen International, tells the BBC, "precisely because audiences are loving it, and word of mouth is super-positive, and the film lends itself to the PLF [premium large format] and premium experience. It's already earned almost double Paul Thomas Anderson's previous biggest film, and it should go a fair bit higher."

One point to remember is that One Battle After Another is sure to have a long shelf life. It may not do Avengers numbers, but it will make more money in cinemas following its inevitable Oscar nominations, and, as an acclaimed film set to endure, significant additional revenue will come from reissues, Blu-ray sales, streaming and television. That doesn't mean it's ever going to be a cash cow for Warner Bros, but it doesn't mean that it's a shocking failure, either.

But the fact is that Anderson is an art house film-maker, and, as much as critics have pushed it as an action-comedy, One Battle After Another is an art house film. Its hectic rhythms, nerve-jangling music, deeply flawed characters, intensely political subject matter, and eccentric mix of seriousness and silliness mark it as the work of a writer-director who is determined to fulfil his own creative ambitions, however uncommercial the results. The reviews and the word of mouth may be superlative, but it's still a challenging film for anyone in the mood for a Friday night blockbuster.

A sound investment?

The real reason its box-office takings seem woeful is that its budget is so astronomical. "The high production budget is making it hard to achieve profitability – that I will concede," Gant says. Anderson's biggest film before now was There Will Be Blood, which made $76.9m (£57m) in 2007. At the other end of the scale, Inherent Vice – which, like One Battle After Another, was inspired by a Thomas Pynchon novel – made just $14.5m (£11m) in 2014. For Warner Bros, then, writing him a cheque for a much heftier amount, even before you tot up the marketing costs, was always going to be a major gamble. So why did they think that the gamble was worth taking?

Some films, it seems, are valuable in ways that didn't immediately show up on the balance sheet. "It's what [studio executives] point at when people criticise them for not doing real films anymore," John Bleasdale, author of The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick, tells the BBC. "And it serves to get more talent to the studio, which is more important than money."

As much as Warner's executives must have hoped for a box-office bonanza, it's useful for the studio to be thought of as a welcoming home for prestigious projects by beloved auteurs. Christopher Nolan, for instance, made films with Warner Bros for almost 20 years before he fell out with them over the distribution of Tenet in 2020, the costly outcome being that he switched to Universal to make Oppenheimer – and that was one of the international success stories of 2023.

More like this:

• The film already gunning to be 2026's biggest

• Why original kids' films are flopping so badly

• Why a hunky Frankenstein's monster is all wrong

You can see why Warner was so keen to sign up Ryan Coogler, the director of Black Panther and Creed. Coogler then made Sinners with them, which turned out to be a box-office sensation. With that in mind, anything that attracts more film-makers of his calibre might feel like a sound investment. "When Terry [Malick] made Days of Heaven for Paramount," says Bleasdale, "Charles Bluhdorn, the president of the studio, said, 'I don't care if we never make a dollar. I want you making movies with us.'"

You can't risk that kind of long-term strategy unless your other films are profitable, of course, but luckily for Warner, some of 2025's biggest money-spinners have been on the company's slate: as well as Sinners, these include A Minecraft Movie, Final Destination: Bloodlines, F1, Superman, Weapons, and Conjuring: The Last Rites. If One Battle After Another hasn't been as lucrative, well, it's still enhanced Warner's reputation as an auteur-friendly studio, forged a relationship with Anderson, and granted them a highly respected film which will be an awards-season favourite. Besides, as Bleasdale points out, "They get Leonardo DiCaprio to come to their Christmas party."

So was the studio right to bankroll One Battle After Another? "Considering everything else that they have had this year, it's a no-brainer," said Lucas Shaw on a recent edition of a film industry podcast, The Town. "You have a movie from a great contemporary film-maker that's got good reviews, and now with Sinners you have two heavy contenders at the Oscars. Paul Thomas Anderson [who has never won an Academy Award] can get his Oscar, then you call it a win and decide that your other successes have covered it. Look, if you're running a movie studio, you have to be able to take a couple of big swings."

The whole affair echoes The Studio, Seth Rogen's Apple TV comedy series about Hollywood executives. One episode is devoted to the studio boss's desperation for someone to thank him on stage at the Golden Globes – the jokey suggestion being that the film business isn't solely about the bottom line. There's also the scene in which Catherine O'Hara's character sums up her experience of running a studio. "The job makes you stressed, and panicked, and miserable. But when it all comes together and you make a good movie, it's good forever."

The Studio might see Hollywood through a rose-tinted lens, but if there are still Hollywood executives who are willing to spend more than $130m to make "a good movie", that's something to be pleased about. And maybe One Battle After Another wasn't such a major gamble. If you produce a cartoon, a superhero film or a video-game adaptation that flops – such as Smurfs, The Flash or Borderlands – you can't console yourself by talking about art and prestige. But if you put your money into a Paul Thomas Anderson film then, whatever happens at the box office, you've still got a Paul Thomas Anderson film. The chances are that you'll be proud of it. In some ways, it's about as safe a bet as a studio executive can make.

--

If you liked this story, sign up for The Essential List newsletter – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can't-miss news, delivered to your inbox twice a week. 

For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebookand Instagram.