We liked Edge of Tomorrow. We want more people to see Edge of Tomorrow. It is unfortunate that its theatrical box office was considered a failure, barely creeping up to $100 million gross in a landscape where many blockbusters open to that amount. Almost immediately, a rebranding effort went into action and the Blu-ray is officially called Live.Die.Repeat now. The title doesn’t really hurt the film. If you’ve been meaning to watch it, you’ll still get the same clever thrills out of the box labeled Live.Die.Repeat. However, focusing on the title would be reductive. The disappointing box office suggests a bigger picture issue about today’s movie marketplace that has nothing to do with the title.
Edge of Tomorrow is essentially an original film. It was based on a manga, but not a manga that had name brand recognition with general mainstream audiences. Not like they would clamor for a new Spider-Man or Iron Man movie, or a James Bond or a remake of a well known previous movie. It was a solid high concept: Groundhog Day as a sci-fi action movie. But it needed to be nurtured to generate the interest that its pre-sold competitors had built in.
As much as we may lament the amount of sequels, remakes and literary adaptations and want to champion original ideas, it’s not as simple as just making the original movie. The box office is so saturated with pre-sold product now that when you are able to make something new, you have to work harder to publicize it. That’s what James Cameron did with Avatar. Edge of Tomorrow had a typical big studio marketing campaign, limited promotional appearances and big ad buys, as if the star power and spectacle alone could sell it. For better or worse, we don’t live in that world anymore. Edge of Tomorrow came in second to The Fault in Our Stars, which was also a good movie, but based on a more well known book.
Related: ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ Review: Starship Looper
They could have called it All You Need is Kill as long as they spent time telling the audience what this movie was. The more generic Edge of Tomorrow neither helped nor hurt it. Plenty of movies succeed with generic titles. Nobody knew what an avatar was until James Cameron spent a year unveiling the world and concepts of his film called Avatar. Warner Brothers, the same studio who released Edge of Tomorrow, spent a good year explaining what Inception was and, along with the caliber of the filmmakers and final product, it worked.
There is a place in cinemas for movies like Edge of Tomorrow. I hope studios who make ambitious films like Edge of Tomorrow will dig a little deeper than just changing the name.
The bonus features are a healthy array of behind the scenes material. At least they gave the film a full special edition despite its perceived underperformance. Brief spots under 10 minutes each give solid explanations of the film’s blend of practical and visual effects, concepts for the creatures and weapons, and Cruise’s physical dominance on the set. Deleted scenes share a few interesting tidbits from battle and time looping scenes.
The standout bonus feature though is the 42 minute “On the Edge with Doug Liman” spot. It follows the director for a more in-depth look at how he collaborates with departments and puts together the film you see. It feels more vérité and less “produced” than the usual DVD extra partly because of its length and access to Liman, but also because it’s not scored with music. They cut away to on the set interviews with Cruise and Emily Blunt, but they’re not hype interviews. They’re used to back up what we’re witnessing Liman do on set. That is refreshing to see on a big studio Blu-ray extra.
Since I reviewed Edge of Tomorrow theatrically, I used this Blu-ray review as an opportunity to debrief on its rebranding campaign. In reality, a $100 million gross is just fine. I mean, it’s a better movie than others that made way more money, but the film exists and will continue to be discovered on Blu-ray and future exhibitions. If Hollywood is not happy with the results though, I hope they take the right lessons from it. Yes, please keep making original, outside the box movies. Just play the long game and spend time building awareness and desire for something different. It will make the box office more fun for everyone.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
