Talk:Bros (film)

Gawker source

I removed the following sentence which is sourced to an opinion piece from Gawker:

The studio and Eichner received criticism for their marketing, with some calling Eichner "self-aggrandizing" after his promotion of the film at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards.

––FormalDude (talk) 23:27, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Fourth???

It is entirely unhelpful to revert back to flawed text that has been tagged as needing clarification if editors are not going to do any work to actually clarify that text.

Being the "fourth"[1] is not noteworthy (and WP:OR) and it is WP:UNDUE to attempt to highlight it in the lead section. The lead section is supposed to summarize what is in the article body, not add new information. There is no need to highlight recent films such as Happiest Season, Love Simon or Fire Island in the lead section, and especially not when the article body doesn't mention them. There have been many LGBTQ+ films over the years and it requires weirdly specific claims to call this the first, second, fourth of anything. Getting hung up on the numbers is not helpful, the detail worth highlighting is that the principal cast is LGBTQ+. -- 109.76.205.64 (talk) 13:55, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

The New York Times says "It isn’t exactly the first major-studio gay rom-com, that rainbow laurel probably goes to 2018’s “Love Simon,” distributed by 20th Century Fox. And TriStar Pictures produced “Happiest Season,” a lesbian holiday rom-com, in 2020."[2]
It is not constructive to try and force a number into the lead section. -- 109.76.205.64 (talk) 13:57, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

It is not clear why the text has since been deleted entirely from the lead,[3] although the edit summary claimed it was because it was "Poorly written and not really needed." The filmmakers themselves repeatedly highlighted that they thought the LGBTQ+ casting was important, the problem was the very narrow definition they used to claim they were somehow the first, and then other editors (and the New York Times) rejecting that self-aggrandizing claim of being first. My only objection was to the unnecessary efforts to put a number on it, the LGBTQIA+ casting does seem to be noteworthy and significant enough not only be mentioned in the article body but also in the lead section. -- 109.76.197.94 (talk) 13:26, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

vandalism

There's some homophobic vandalism on the main page here. 92.235.56.57 (talk) 18:39, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Obvious vandalism can simply be reverted. The article has been locked for a week in response. -- 109.76.205.64 (talk) 20:15, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Box office gross

I'm sure it was a good faith effort but editors seem to have updated the box office numbers in the lead section without actually reading the text. The previous text was specifically referring to the film underperforming in the opening weekend. The film grossed $4,854,125 ($4.9 million) in its opening weekend, the total gross is now $5,308,380 ($5.3 million). If you're going to update the figures to what is now the total gross (instead of just the opening weekend gross) then the text also needs to be updated.

I would fix this by removing the mention of the opening weekend, changing

X "The film received positive reviews from critics but disappointed at the box office in its opening weekend, grossing $5.3 million against a budget of $22 million."

to Y "The film received positive reviews from critics. It was a box office disappointment, grossing $5.3 million against a budget of $22 million."

or something like that. (Note: I would try to avoid setting up the "but" or any claims or connections that the box office was "despite" the positive reviews, since the two things are separate, correlation not causation.) -- 109.79.77.170 (talk) 09:22, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Canada isn't part of the United States

In the United States and Canada, Bros was released alongside Smile, and was initially projected to gross $8–10 million from 3,300 theaters in its opening weekend.[3] After making $1.8 million on its first day of release, including $500,000 from Thursday night previews, projections were revised to $4–5 million. The film went on to debut to $4.9 million, finishing fifth at the box office.[21][22] The film's top 10-performing theaters were all in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, while it underperformed in much of the middle of the country and in the south.[23]

It's a weird shift, from talking about North America, to just talking about the US. Can someone edit this?2604:3D09:C77:4E00:B57E:ADA7:C47F:9151 (talk) 14:37, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

False information

“Prior to its release, the film was subjected to homophobic review bombing from users on IMDb.[28][29]“

This states that this is a fact, while the articles both only speculate that this happened. It would be more accurate to state that it was subject to review bombing, and either leave the motivations for it out or include that it’s speculation. Steeloats (talk) 23:35, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

FWIW this was previously removed[4] and restored[5]

I would fundamentally question if it was noteworthy to include any claims of review bombing in an encyclopedia film article, unless more more reliable sources had covered it. As sources such as Variety have pointed out (in the box office section) this film had more fundamental problems attracting an audience than any attempts to skew an already unreliable user voted web poll. If as you say it is speculation then it is unlikely it should be included at all (because sometimes some kinds of speculation are allowed if they are clearly attributed). -- 109.79.165.45 (talk) 02:45, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Deleted.[6] I would appreciate if editors who believe this is worth including would explain why before restoring it again. -- 109.76.133.184 (talk) 22:31, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

PinkNews is a reliable source and it states in the article that "A group of homophobes have spent their free time review bombing Billy Eichner’s gay romantic-comedy Bros." ––FormalDude (talk) 22:48, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm skeptical of mentioning review bombing at all, it seems par for the course, and it was an _attempt_ at review bombing that was scrubbed by IMDB and not due any attention further.

If it is to remain in the article the Critical response section does not seem like the right place for it. If the opinion of PinkNews is that review bombing was homophobic (and that he only possible motivation was that some people are "pathetic homophobes") then it might be necessary to clearly attribute that opinion directly to them (or maybe as an alternate theory people might just not like Billy Eichner). I think it would be better addressed as part of the Release/Marketing section, and put in context with the reaction to the Marketing[7] and tweets where Billy Eichner was attempting to promote the film. -- 109.78.204.243 (talk) 10:08, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

WP:INTEXT attribution seems appropriate to do. This is another source that talks about the review-bombing. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 13:41, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

After I commented, I noticed presumption that the review bombing was inherently "homophobic" had already been dropped. The AV Club is a secondary source reporting this so including it [the review bombing] no longer seems WP:UNDUE. Thanks Erik for rearranging things and improving the article. -- 109.78.204.243 (talk) 21:15, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

And FormalDude added the word "homophobic" back in again.[8] I don't feel as strongly about this as the earlier anon ipv6 editor did but it is really necessary to include this assertion at all? Maybe I'm naive to believe that people can truly deeply dislike Billy Eichner for who he is a person. If you're going to insist that it is important to characterize the review bombing as "homophobic" then place make the WP:INTEXT attribution clear on who specifically is saying it. -- 109.76.194.74 (talk) 23:50, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

In text attribution is not needed for non-controversial facts, and the review bombing is portrayed as homophobic by every RS that reports on it. ––FormalDude (talk) 05:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

It is subjective, anon ipv6 disputed it, and I mildy disagree with the assertion. It might be a fair opinion, but it is subjective is not "non-controversial facts" either. -- 109.79.175.195 (talk) 19:21, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Rather than one single word I would encourage you to add context by including a more significant sentence or two outlining why a few sources thought it was worth reporting on this review bombing in the first place. -- 109.79.175.195 (talk) 19:38, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Again I urge you to rethink how to make this a better encyclopedia article and rephrase that section into something more effective and convincing. -- 109.79.175.195 (talk) 23:03, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

It is non-controversial as no reliable sources dispute it. ––FormalDude (talk) 23:40, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Box office breakdown in lead

An editor is trying to force extra office details[9] into the lead section and it is simply WP:UNDUE. (The errors reintroduced shows a lack of due care and attention. It also is not clear why this editor things having an excessively long quote in a reference in the production section is necessary either.)

The international box office represents only a few million difference to the overall gross of this film, and it is far from recouping its budget and is unlikley to do so. (That isn't even counting the P&A spend and other costs.) Adding more details to the lead section doesn't change that this film was a box office disappointment, they fundamentally spent too much on a film that had a limited potential audience. Rather than add unnecessary emphasis and highlight the box office failure it might be better to summarize what the critics said and the fact that many of the people who saw the film seemed to like it. -- 109.76.195.65 (talk) 20:15, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

The comments about "doing better" on PVOD weren't great either, there are more vague than an encyclopedia should be but it is difficult to succinctly summarize 2nd and 3rd place in some PVOD charts that Indiewire thought was good. It would be better to wait until some hard facts and figures about home media revenues are available from The-Numbers.com -- 109.76.195.65 (talk) 20:19, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

It isn't too early to call this film a box office disappointment[10] Deadline Hollywood and Eichner himself have acknowledge this.[11] The film was always going to make most of its gross in the US, the international gross is unlikely to even match the US gross, it doesn't matter, it wont matter and it attempting to highlight doesn't make things look any better. -- 109.76.195.65 (talk) 21:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't personally feel the need to use the harsh term box office bomb but Variety has called Bros a bomb.[12] Forcing extra box office details into the lead section doesn't make this film look any better. The lead section is supposed to summarize and the extra details are undue. -- 109.76.195.65 (talk) 21:06, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Editor is clearly more interested in accusing me of edit warring than fixing any of the mistakes he keeps reintroducing.[13] Other editors might want to remove the unnecessary details, trim the excessively long quote, and remove the duplicate references. -- 109.76.195.65 (talk) 21:13, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Before it was deleted, the editor described you on your talk page as "repeatedly commenting to yourself" on article talk pages. I see it as updating your rationale for users to see, and some other editors could stand to use such an approach. I have no strong opinion on the edits (although the bare ref bugs me), but the talk concerning them is one-sided. 70.163.208.142 (talk) 01:05, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

It is strange to be accused of edit warring WP:BRD by someone who refuses to engage in the D WP:DISCUSS part of the BRD cycle. Perhaps the editor thinks their comments in edit summaries are enough (but the guidelines say no). I am attempting to explain myself, show my work, and edit collaboratively. I am interested in the contents of the encyclopedia article not getting other editors blocked from editing or getting articles locked.

The duplicate references should still be removed, that the anon ipv6 editor insisted on adding them back and was unwilling to make their edits cleanly or actually discuss was bizarre. (The Indiewire reference not only includes the author name Tom Brueggemann twice which first prompted me to clean it up, but it is a duplicate of the named reference "BrosPVOD" that is already included in the article body.) The duplicate Rotten Tomatoes reference in the lead section is obviously unnecessary, see WP:LEAD and WP:NAMEDREFS, and adding it back shows a lack of due care and attention. It will inevitably need to be fixed. (Unfortunately the automated tool Refill does not automatically detect the duplicate references, it needs to be fixed manually.)

The excessively long quote in the Patch.com reference is not needed at all. Patch.com is a local NJ news site is not a good reference[14] they take the filmmakers statement about this film being a "first" at face value. The much more reliable New York Times takes a closer look at that self aggrandizing claim and deflates it[15] and any claims of being "first" requires too many caveats so this encyclopedia article must be very careful about how it reports the claims about the LGBT cast. This issue was basically already discussed, see above Talk:Bros_(film)#Fourth???.

And back to the box office details, the sentence "It wasn't released internationally until several weeks later" is entirely WP:UNDUE that the film had difference release dates in different countries is such a common thing that it is irrelevant, totally not worth highlighting. The lead section should summarize what is actually in the article body not add new information. Ultimately the international box office is extremely unlikely to make any significant difference (it is unlikely to make even half the half the domestic gross again). We might have to wait a few weeks before we have all the facts and figures to say that absolutely definitively, but it is pointless to split out the domestic and international grosses instead of simply summarizing the total worldwide gross. The extra detail that the anonipv6 editor is adding to the lead section is simply unnecessary. Some or all of the changes I made will need to be repeated sooner or later.

If the other editor would WP:DISCUSS then perhaps I might come to understand their perspective, but it still looks to me like someone top loading the article by adding things to the lead section instead of summarizing what is actually in the article body. -- 109.76.128.10 (talk) 12:15, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

An editor has already removed the statement "It wasn't released internationally until several weeks later"[16]. -- 109.76.128.10 (talk) 12:43, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

More of the problems I was trying to fix have been fixed again. The duplicate refs have been removed.[17] The PVOD performance has been rephrased and now says "but found success on home video". It is too soon to say "success" without knowing how much revenue it actually generated, Indiewire only said that "Strong VOD results" and "actually quite good"[18]. The-Numbers.com will publish home media revenue figure eventually be released and then we can say objectively. The exact same film could have been a success as a low budget independent film but as a studio film with a studio sized budget this film needed to find a big cross over audience to bring in the necessary gross but it didn't. -- 109.76.135.144 (talk) 13:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Missing information

The article includes this sentence:

"he film was a box office bomb, grossing just $13 million worldwide against a budget of $22 million, but found success on home video." 2601:200:C000:1A0:2979:6874:1986:631D (talk) 18:33, 8 November 2022 (UTC)