Look, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe are just actors, okay? All they can do is be charming, be funny, say pithy things about their new movie The Nice Guys, and hope that sells and people go to see it. But it seems that the movie’s producer Joel Silver thinks there’s more they can do. Much more in fact, as the wild rant he went on that you see above in a promotional video from Warner Brothers expresses very clearly.
Silver is worried that the movie is toast at the box office when it opens Friday (and according to Variety, he may be on to something there). The Nice Guys is going up against The Angry Birds Movie and Neighbors 2. Add to that the carryover of Captain America: Civil War and things look desperate for Crowe and Gosling’s ’70s action comedy, despite a stellar, 97 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. He notes that people only want to see what they know, pointing to the 2 in Neighbors 2 and the massive success of the Angry Birds video games as proof. He wants his stars to tweet and retweet (though neither of their 2 million total followers are nearly enough for him).
And when he notes that Robert Downey Jr. is “killing it,” and Gosling replies that Iron-Man is a “one man charisma machine,” that sends Silver over the edge. “What are you guys?? What do I got??” he wails. “I got two schmucks!”
The whole thing, while being very, very meta, is also very funny and along with the movie’s webisodes from last month, it adds to the appeal of what looks like is going to be a terrific movie. See for yourself up top.
