When Billy Bob Thornton went to Hackney and left with the worst movie of his career: “12 people are gonna see it”
Realistically, there’s no other reason for Billy Bob Thornton to ever set foot in Hackney other than to shoot a movie. When he did, he got much less than he bargained for after walking away with the single worst movie of his entire career.
That made a mockery of his pre-release confidence, although there was a caveat. While the star conceded that it was a film that not many people were likely to see, he was confident enough in what he’s witnessed and experienced on set to predict that a masterpiece was afoot. Instead, it was a disaster.
Perhaps the passage of time would have altered his mindset, since the picture wrapped principal photography in 2014 and wouldn’t be released until three years later. In between those two points, it was the subject of multiple lawsuits being filed by the director, producers, and star, with Katy Perry even being dragged into the legal discourse.
Matthew Cullen’s adaptation of Martin Amis’ novel, London Fields, was a shitshow, to put it bluntly. Shot on location in, around, and against several East London backdrops, Thornton was joined in Hackney by Amber Heard, Jim Sturgess, Theo James, Jason Isaacs, and others, and he had no inkling of the storm that was to come when he first touted the movie.
“12 people are gonna see it, six of them won’t know what it means, and the other six are gonna think it’s a masterpiece, which it is,” he confidently told The Hollywood Reporter in October 2014. “It’s not all together yet, but it’s brilliant. It’s like they used to make movies that were different. It feels very contemporary, and yet, it feels like a movie like Blow-Up. You know, it’s terrific.”
Still, he managed to predict what was to come. Thornton also described the film as “something that the bloggers will destroy,” and that it was “gonna be a polarising movie.” He wasn’t entirely correct, though, seeing as it wasn’t polarising at all because when it finally arrived to zero fanfare, London Fields couldn’t buy a positive review to save its life.
Recouping just over 5% of its budget at the box office, anyone unfortunate enough to lay eyes on the woeful excuse for a psychological mystery thriller immediately understood why the source material had long been called unfilmable. Maybe someone other than Cullen could have cracked it, but it would be an understatement to say that he did not, because it was a steaming pile of shite.
Even if it wasn’t crap, which it very much was, it was unlikely that London Fields would have been able to weather the bad buzz anyway. Beyond the furore surrounding Heard and Johnny Depp, who made an uncredited cameo, Cullen suing the producers, the producers suing Cullen, the producers suing Heard, and Heard suing the producers did not paint the picture of a masterpiece in waiting.
We’d love to know if Thornton saw an early cut of the movie, because it boggles the mind that anyone could see a single frame from London Fields and expect anything other than a total and unmitigated disaster.
