Martin Scorsese recalls one of his movies as “the flop of the year”
The legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese has been somewhat active in the press lately as we approach his new movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Recently, the 80-year-old has also appeared in a series of videos on his daughter Francesca Scorsese’s TikTok account. In the latest clip, the director remembered the moment he realised his movie The King Of Comedy would be a flop.
The video begins with Scorcese trying to guess the alien word forms of Gen-Z slang. When quizzed on the phrase “slept on,” Francesca had to help him out by using it in a sentence, saying, “The King Of Comedy was slept on.”
Released in 1982, the Robert De Niro-starring movie followed the story of a sociopathic stand-up comedian – much like Joaquin Phoenix’s character in Joker – who goes to chilling lengths to attain his dream.
“People hated it when it came out,” Scorsese agreed. He remembered the movie being dubbed “the flop of the year” on national television. “That’s what it was called on Entertainment Tonight, New Year’s Eve ’83-’84,” he revealed.
Although many critics favoured The King of Comedy, it was a commercial disappointment compared with some of Scorsese’s previous pictures, such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. From a budget of $20million, the movie only reaped $2.5million at the box office.
Reflecting on the movie in a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair, Scorsese said: “[The King of Comedy] is about a certain aspect of our culture, and also about not taking yourself too seriously, even though I do. All of that came out during the making of the film.”
