Well, that didn’t work. Amsterdam is poised to be one of 2022’s biggest bombs, opening to a paltry $6.4 million in its opening weekend. Experts say it’s poised to lose something like $80-$100 million — a shocking amount for a movie that seemed poised to be a player at the Oscars. But both critics and audiences have ignored the period comedy.
On paper, it looked good. Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie lead a huge ensemble cast that included the likes of Anya Taylor-Joy, Rami Malek, Robert de Niro, Chris Rock, Timothy Olyphant, Michael Shannon, Zoe Saldana and Taylor Swift, for crying out loud.
But it was also directed by David O. Russell, the man behind movies like Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter and American Hustle. As a filmmaker, Russell has made some decent movies. As a person …well.
Based on numerous onset stories and several infamous videos, Russell fits the stereotype of a certain type of Hollywood filmmaker whose artistic ability gives him wide license to treat the people around him terribly, verbally berating his cast and crew.
Stories abound. George Clooney told Playboy that working with Russell was “truly, without exception, the worst experience of my life,” detailing a time when he was physically assaulted by Russell after he stepped in to defend a crew member from one of the director’s outbursts. In 2004, an infamous video from the set of I Heart Huckabees showed Russell screaming at Lily Tomlin, hurling vile obscenities at her.
In 2013, Christian Bale reportedly had to intervene on the set of American Hustle to defend his co-star Amy Adams from one of Russell’s tirades. Adams confirmed Russell’s behavior in a GQ interview, saying she was “devastated” on “most” days. “Jennifer [Lawrence] doesn’t take any of it on. She’s Teflon. And I am not Teflon,” Adams said. “But I also don’t like to see other people treated badly. It’s not OK with me. Life to me is more important than movies.”
And this is just onset behavior. In 2011, Russell’s then-19-year-old niece Nicole Peloquin filed a report with police, accusing her uncle of groping her while the two worked out together. According to police reports, Russell confirmed that “inappropriate touching” did occur, but blamed his niece, who is transgender, saying she had been “acting very provocative toward him.” The case was eventually closed with no charges filed.
None of this means that Russell hasn’t made good movies. He clearly has. It does call into question just how swift and powerful this so-called “cancel culture” is if a filmmaker with a lengthy and documented history of abusive behavior can still get good work.
There’s this myth you sometimes hear about celebrated artists — how they’re just so creative that they can’t be expected to get along well with others. It’s under this myth that the transgressions of men (it’s always men) like Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Stanley Kubrick were given a pass, no matter the testimonies of Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow and Shelley Duvall.
But that myth is nonsense. Artists — even great ones — can be patient or hot-headed, measured or mercurial, empathetic or argumentative. None of these traits are bad in and of themselves. It’s what you do with these dispositions that counts. By multiple accounts, Russell has chosen to treat the people who work with him like a tyrant. And until we see real evidence of change, there is simply no excuse for it.
There’s no reason to think that Amsterdam‘s box office performance is in any way connected to Russell’s onset behavior. Audiences don’t exactly make decisions about what they will and won’t watch based on the director’s list of controversies on the Wikipedia page. But its poor performance might help convince some of the actors involved that it’s just not worth it to work with Russell anymore. At least, not until he demonstrates some real remorse and transformation.
