Oscar Isaac has been a part of some of the biggest projects of all time. Not only has he played three different characters in the Marvel Universe, but he has also been a part of the Star Wars franchise, the Dune film series, and a huge number of critically acclaimed films. He has a reputation for being an incredibly talented actor, something that has helped him have a great standing in Hollywood. Being as successful as he is, it is surprising to find out that he was part of a project that was bombed in a horribly tragic way.
Isaac’s 2016 film, The Promise, ended up losing a huge amount of money, not because the movie wasn’t good enough. The film ended up severely underperforming because of politics. The film’s controversial story tampered with its promising future, resulting in its underwhelming performance.
Also Read: “The people have spoken”: Oscar Isaac Just Beat Andrew Garfield as the Most Iconic Spider-Man
Oscar Isaac’s The Promise Got Caught in Politics
Oscar Isaac starred in the film, The Promise, following the story of Mikael, Who falls in love with a woman in Constantinople. After returning to his hometown during World War I, the teams of the film quickly turned to genocide and the struggle to survive and find safety. These are, of course, some very dark themes. However, they were being portrayed by the right people, with Christian Bale, Charlotte Le Bon, and Jene Reno.
despite this, the movie was a box of disaster. Not only did not do very well with critics, the film also managed to lose a lot of money. The film had a budget of 90 million, one of the highest in all of Isaac’s filmography. Despite this, the movie only managed to make $10.6 million, worldwide. this means that the movie fell short of $79.4 million.
This Performance May Have Nothing To Do With The Movie On Its Own
When looking at these numbers, one would naturally assume the disappointing performance of this movie to be because of a number of different reasons, ranging from poor performances, poorly written script, bad direction, or simply a lack of hyper around it. However, it was suggested by the producer of this movie, that the real reason why he thinks the movie performed poorly was because of politics.
“It became clear that the government of Turkey was going to have an influence on this movie. One of the most insidious realities of our existence in the United States is that foreign governments can control art. I would say at the highest levels from different studios, we were just basically told that no matter how good the film would be, it was never going be released by certain companies. I think that that’s truly shameful, but it’s just a reality that we had to deal with.”
Eric Esrailian, the producer of this movie, told The Hollywood Reporter that the reason why he thinks, the movie did poorly is completely unrelated to the quality of the film and more related to the content of it. he explained that the themes of genocide stopped the production from being able to find a US distributor. He added that he believes the country of Turkey was responsible, as it denies that the deaths during World War I, of around 1.5 million Armenians, were genocide.
