Credit: Passengers
Passengers Should’ve Been An Easy Success
Passengers should’ve been both a critical and financial hit. The director of The Imitation Game helmed with the feature. Plus, Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt have proven to be capable actors who usually rise to the occasion. The Jennifer Lawrence vehicle was about two passengers waking up 90 years too early from their suspended animation. At first, Aurora and Jim are living the high life on the luxury ship, with the two eventually falling in love. Unbeknownst to Jim and Aurora, the ship is in danger. This could spell doom for them and the 5,000 other sleeping passengers on board.
Sounds awesome, right? Well, sometimes even a great premise can churn out a terrible movie. Critics sighted the film as creepy due to the way Chris Pratt’s character courts Aurora. Most critics and audiences thought that the film was extremely boring as well. The Oscar-nominated actress was still hot off her Hunger Games franchise. Chris Pratt was the shiny new thing in Hollywood thanks to his role as Peter in Guardians of the Galaxy. Despite the negative reviews, the film should’ve made a profit based on the star power. Unfortunately, Passengers only collected $303 M worldwide, which isn’t good considering that their production budget was around $126 M before marketing.
Credit: Passengers
Jennifer Lawrence Regrets Signing Onto Passengers
However, Lawrence knew it was time to take a break even before Passengers was released. The Hunger Games star felt that the public was tired of her due to overexposure. She regretted doing Passengers for multiple reasons, including the sex scene with Chris Pratt. Surprisingly, Lawrence revealed that Grammy-winning singer Adele told her to not do the film, “Passengers,’ I guess. Adele told me not to do it! She was like, ‘I feel like space movies are the new vampire movies.’ I should have listened to her.” She told The New York Times.
This isn’t the first time that the actress spoke out against the film as Lawrence has explained that she wasn’t a fan of kissing Chris Pratt. She knew who her co-star was before signing the contract, but she felt that kissing Pratt was a form of infidelity. The situation was severely uncomfortable for her during those romantic moments. The 32-year-old actually used alcohol as a coping mechanism to get through those intimate scenes, even though Lawrence has stated that she handled those moments poorly.
Credit: Passengers
Chris Pratt Was Actually Surprised By The Criticism
On the other hand, Chris Pratt doesn’t feel the same way that Jennifer Lawrence does. Of course, he was shocked by the amount of hate that Passengers was strongly piling up; however, he’s proud of that film and feels it’s really good, “It did, it really did (surprise me). that really caught me off guard. It was definitely a lesson,” he told Variety. “I personally think the movie is very good; I’m very proud of it,” he continued. “I’ll be curious to see if it holds up – the criticism and the movie.”
Passengers may end up becoming a cult classic, though it’s been six years since the film’s release, and the public perception doesn’t seem to have changed very much. Chris Pratt’s character really rubbed critics and audiences the wrong way. He selfishly released Aurora from her sleeping pod because he was bored, foregoing her life and the danger that comes with waking her up for his sexual desires. As I previously stated, Passengers is not the most exciting movie in the world as the film is too focused on the romantic parts between Aurora and Jim that the sci-fi elements and themes aren’t given a stronger exploration. There are certainly worse films, but Passengers was a huge disappointment overall.
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