Say Goodbye Brad Pitt’s Cult Classic Crime Thriller

In a recent interview on Matt Belloni‘s The Town podcast, director Paul Feig unpacked the ingredients of a mainstream theatrical blockbuster. He swore by test screenings and taking other points of view into account. He also admitted that his raunchy 2011 comedy hit Bridesmaids would likely be released as a straight-to-streaming title if it were made today. The movie grossed more than $300 million worldwide in theaters. He said that the studio is very interested in making a sequel, but that the decision ultimately rests in the hands of Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who wrote the original. But that’s how drastically the theatrical market has changed in the last decade. Comedies have almost entirely been relegated to streaming, and the same goes for star-driven genre pieces.

For instance, even if the same A-list cast were to return, it would be virtually impossible for a movie like Burn After Reading to do as well as it did in theaters in 2008. And that’s if it gets a theatrical release at all. Directed by the Coen Brothers, the movie combined the goofy comedy of their cult classic The Big Lebowski with the espionage thrills of something like The Bourne Ultimatum. It featured a stacked cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich, J.K. Simmons, and more.

Here’s Where You Can Watch ‘Burn After Reading’

The movie was a surprisingly robust hit, grossing more than $160 million worldwide against a reported budget of under $40 million. In fact, it’s one of the top-grossing movies of the Coens’ career. Burn After Reading opened to mostly positive reviews and is now sitting at a “Certified Fresh” 78% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, whose consensus praised the Coens for crafting “another clever comedy/thriller with an outlandish plot and memorable characters.” The filmmaker duo infamously split up following 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and have worked separately for nearly a decade. Joel Coen is putting together a new Gothic mystery titled Jack of Spades, while Ethan Coen has made two installments of a planned comedy trilogy. Burn After Reading recently left the Peacock streaming service, but is available to rent and purchase on Prime Video. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.