Tom Hardy’s $35 million thriller to become a streaming success makes me wish Disney hadn’t dumped it

Tom Hardy’s latest thriller, The bakershas become a streaming success, which only makes me wish Disney had given it a chance. One of the most anticipated releases of 2024 was the crime drama thriller The bakersDirected by Jeff Nichols. Inspired by the photo-book of the same name by Danny Lyon, The bakers Takes viewers back to 1960s Chicago to meet the fictional Vandals Motorcycle Club, based on the real-life group Outlaws Motorcycle Club. The Vandals are led by Johnny (Hardy), who also founded the club.

Also part of the club is Benny (Austin Butler), who meets Kathy Bauer (Jodie Comer) and marries her five weeks later. It is through her that the stories of Johnny, Benny and the club are told as she is interviewed by photography student Danny Lyon. The bakers Follows the rise and fall of the Vandals as they go through losses, conflicts with other groups, and an unexpected change in their ranks. Despite its premise and its cast (which also includes Michael Shannon and Norman Reedus), The bakers is not doing well at the box officeBut its success on streaming proves Disney shouldn’t have dropped it.

Tom Hardy’s The Bikeriders is a hit on streaming after earning just $35 million in theaters

The Bikeriders found its audience on streaming

The bakers It premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in August 2023 and was originally scheduled for a December 2023 release under the wing of 20th Century Studios. However, it was removed from the schedule due to the SAG-AFTRA strike in July 2023, as the cast was prevented from promoting the film. In November 2023, New Regency began shopping The bakers Instead to rival studios and streamers, reportedly due to the lack of time to put together a proper publicity campaign after the end of the 2023 Hollywood strikes.

Focus features picked The bakers up and acquired its distribution rights, with New Regency agreeing to it after their previous collaboration on The Nortman Proved to be profitable even if it wasn’t a box office hit. Unfortunately, this is not the case for The bakersWhich ended up selling 35.8 million dollars against a budget of 30-40 million dollars. however, The bakers was a critical success and currently has an 80% critics score On Rotten tomatoes.

Not long after its theatrical release, The bakers was released on streaming, where it finally found its audience. The bakers Found the success in streaming that it could not get in theaters, making it to the top ten most popular movies in the last week of August 2024. It has become quite common for movies that are not successful at the box office to find their movies. place on streaming (which also happened to The Nortman), and while I am happy that The bakers Finally getting the attention it deserves, This could have been avoided if Disney had given it a chance.

I wish Disney released Bikeriders and gave it a better chance of success

Disney could have been the bakers’ home

If The bakers Became an anticipated release in 2024, this was thanks to Disney. A movie about a motorcycle club with Tom Hardy and Austin Butler is going to get a lot of attention on its own, but under the Disney/20th Century Studios banner, it has greater chances to succeed. As mentioned above, the 2023 Hollywood strikes were a contributing factor to The bakers‘ Release date change and New Regency looking for a new distributor, however Disney could still make it work once the strike was over.

With a marketing push like only Disney knows how to do, The bakers Could have done better in theaters – the difference may not have been massive, but definitely notable. While I’m obviously happy focus features given The bakers A chance (I admit there was a point where I thought The bakers It was not going to see the light of day), it was a very quiet release which made it almost unnoticeable, leading to its box office underperformance.

The bakers is the type of movie that is struggling now: It’s not a sequel, it’s not a fantasy movie, it’s not part of a franchise, and its source material isn’t widely known. The bakersTherefore, a strong marketing campaign is needed to get the attention and bigger audience it deserves, which would not only be good for the movie but for more of its type being made, which is much needed in the current era of franchises, sequels, remakes , and reboot.

The Bikeriders is Tom Hardy’s best movie in years

The Bikers was a much-needed change in Tom Hardy’s career

The bakers is a good combination of drama, crime and thriller with a cast that excels in every scene – but if those are not good enough reasons for it to deserve a larger theatrical release, The bakers Is also Tom Hardy’s best movie in a long time. Hardy saw great success in 2015 and 2016 with Mad Max: Fury Road, The RevenantAnd Dunkirk. Since then, however, Hardy made mostly appearances as Eddie Brock/Venom in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and in 2020, he has the lead role in the forgettable biographical drama Capone.

While Hardy’s performances as Eddie Brock/Venom have been entertaining, they don’t exactly qualify as some of the best of his career. The bakers Feels like his return to the more serious and dramatic roles he’s praised for, so it’s an even bigger shame that it didn’t get the attention it deserved in theaters—thankfully, it found its audience on streaming.