Movies

Nepo Bust: How Nepo Baby Directors Made Some of the Biggest Flops of the Year, From ‘Red One’ to ‘The Watchers’

It can take just a generation for a family name to go from Oscar darling to Razzie frontrunner.

Case in point: Jake Kasdan’s Christmas-themed “Red One” landed in theaters on Nov. 15 with a thud louder than Santa’s sleigh hitting a rooftop. The Dwayne JohnsonChris Evans pairing, which chronicles the bid to rescue Old Saint Nick after he is kidnapped from the North Pole on Christmas Eve, has mustered just $175 million worldwide to date despite a colossal $250 million budget. For Kasdan, the son of four-time Oscar nominee Lawrence Kasdan (“The Big Chill,” “Body Heat”), the “Red One” reviews were even harsher than the box office, with the film receiving a 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

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Kasdan — whose track record outside “Red One” was enviable, with $2.5 billion in box office from the recent “Jumanji” films and others — was far from alone this year. The past 12 months have featured a procession of underperformers and downright embarrassments hailing from nepo baby filmmakers and executives with names like Spielberg and Shyamalan. In fact, 2024 may go down as the year of the nepo bust.

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“The first inclination is to say, ‘I want as much money for my budget and as many shooting days as possible.’ But you may come to regret that because in many ways you’re setting yourself up for failure and scrutiny,” says Peter Newman, head of the MBA/MFA graduate dual degree program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. “People should be encouraged to be cautious about what they say yes to and not ask for this and that even if someone’s willing to give it to them.”

And someone often is willing to give the spawn of Hollywood’s A-list more than needed. For her feature directorial debut, Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of Oscar nominee M. Night Shyamalan, secured a $30 million budget for the supernatural horror movie “The Watchers” — an extraordinary sum for a first-timer. Despite a release from New Line Cinema-Warner Bros. in the summer corridor, the Dakota Fanning-starrer pulled in just $33 million worldwide, with a disastrous C- CinemaScore.

A similar scenario played out for Zelda Williams, daughter of the late comedy icon Robin Williams, with her first movie, the rom-com-horror hybrid “Lisa Frankenstein.” The Focus Features film cost $13 million, well above the going rate for a novice. Its global haul topped off at just under $10 million after it opened in February.

And though Destry Allyn Spielberg worked with a budget closer to standard for her feature debut, “Please Don’t Feed the Children,” the film was plagued by negative headlines. Variety previously reported that vendors complained that they still hadn’t been paid six months after the New Mexico production wrapped in November (The vendors were paid after the production — which cost at least $4.4 million, according to the state’s tax incentive program spending — received a cash infusion from a pair of investors.)

Next-gen film flameouts have long been a staple in the Hollywood ecosystem. There was Breck Eisner (son of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner), who was given a $160 million budget for the 2005 Paramount tentpole “Sahara,” only to see it take in less than $120 million worldwide. And Jennifer Lynch (daughter of David Lynch) was enmeshed a decade earlier in a lawsuit with Kim Basinger after the actress dropped out of “Boxing Helena” before production. But 2024 saw a steady clip of nepo baby stumbles, including Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman) finding little box office traction for “Saturday Night,” his ode to the sketch comedy show, despite positive reviews. The Sony film earned less than $10 million against a $30 million budget. (“Saturday Night” was hampered by the fact that Sony only gave it a minuscule marketing budget.)

On a different spectrum of embarrassment, mini-mogul Casey Wasserman, the ultimate nepo baby as the grandson of legendary agent Lew Wasserman, was accused of having “serial” affairs with junior employees that stretched back years. Amid the fallout, Billie Eilish exited his Wasserman Music for WME.

Yet the news wasn’t all bad for nepo baby directors and executives in 2024. Zoë Kravitz, the daughter of Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz, scored a hit with the psychological thriller “Blink Twice.” The $20 million Amazon movie, which opened in August and marked her first turn behind the camera, finished its run with $46 million worldwide. And Gia Coppola, the latest member of the Coppola film dynasty, hasn’t fully tested the box office waters with her drama “The Last Showgirl.” The film about cast-aside Vegas dancers nabbed $50,300 on one screen in its Oscar-qualifying first weekend, marking the fifth-best per-screen opening of the year for the Roadside Attractions film. Perhaps its biggest coup is that it has entered the awards-season conversation, with star Pamela Anderson landing a Golden Globe nomination in the drama category. And the supporting cast, led by nepo babies Jamie Lee Curtis and Billie Lourd, have earned raves for their moving performances.

Some would argue that even “Red One” isn’t the box office equivalent of a lump of coal. Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, says the film continues to stick around in the top 10 after bowing on Dec. 5 on Prime, where it amassed a staggering 50 million streams in its first weekend.

“‘Red One’ was meant to be a straight streaming play, and they made the decision to go theatrical,” he says. “This definitely isn’t a movie made for critics, but it could be a Christmas season perennial for Amazon and stream for years and years to come.”

After all, it might take a few decades for a prestige name to lose its cachet — or a maligned film could become a classic overnight.

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