The Ray Liotta movie that not even God could make a success: “That’s now how it works!”
Ray Liotta was among the rare actors who would always completely commit to the roles he was given, regardless of the quality of the film he was appearing in, but there’s one of his movies that no one has ever heard of, and the late great actor knew why.
His tragic passing in 2022 was an insurmountable loss for the film industry because of how unique a presence he was; whether it was an all-time classic like Goodfellas, a goofy cameo in Muppets From Space, or a ridiculous action movie like Revolver, when it came to showing up, Liotta never brought around anything less than his A-game.
As with many great actors, he too had a career filled with peaks and valleys, and although Goodfellas certainly brought him the most acclaim, he experienced a comeback in the early 21st century with a series of brutal crime thrillers like Narc, John Q., Hannibal, and Identity, clearly showing enough experience in the industry to know what went into making a hit, which is why it’s baffling that the producers of The Identical, a bizarre faith-based musical drama about two twin brothers separated at birth, pursuing their love of music, didn’t listen to him.
While a film with such a unique audience in mind needed to be gradually screened to audiences, Liotta told The Rake that The Identical was developed by “a new group of people” who had “never done a movie before”.
“They said they were going to open the movie into 1,200 to 1,500 screens,” he recalled, “I said, ‘You guys are crazy, this thing has to be platformed, it has to come out slowly and smartly, and you have to do it through churches, show it to pastors, go to religious conventions, get the movie into people’s heads slowly’.”
If a film is sent out into wide release before there’s enthusiasm behind it, it can often be overshadowed by larger titles with more robust studio marketing campaigns behind them; hence, the limited rollout strategy has been employed by Hollywood for decades as a means of gradually growing buzz for a film while it is still playing in select cities. Unfortunately for Liotta, the producers behind The Identical thought that the film’s box office would benefit from divine intervention.
“[A producer] said, ‘No, no, no, no, Ray, we got a secret weapon’,” the actor relayed, “I said, ‘What?’ He piously holds his finger up in the air and looks in my eyes and says, ‘We have him!’ I say, ‘That’s not how it works! Just because you believe in God doesn’t mean he’s going to open your movie!’”
The Identical became a notorious box office disaster that failed to clear $3million, despite costing over $16m, and, in fairness to trusting in the ‘Man upstairs’, reviews for the film were among the most scathing of any significant release in the 21st century, wherein Liotta’s tips on how to give the film a proper release may not have saved it.
However, whether or not Liotta knew he had a flop on his hands, it’s admirable that he made a decent effort to save The Identical from obscurity, and although it’s the type of stinker that could ruin an actor’s career, the man actually managed to walk away without suffering much damage, where even the most disparaging reviews seemed to identify that Liotta was by far the best thing in the film.
