I don’t know the detailed financial particulars behind Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, but I do know that this modestly-scaled, indie-flavored period drama (set in 1982) cost $55 million to produce, and that’s just fucking ridiculous.
If I was a studio chief and this Scott Cooper-directed feature had been pitched to me at that budget, I would have thought about it for 40 or 50 seconds and said, “$55 million for a movie about a depressed, New Jersey-born rock star recording a no-frills album in his bedroom? Even with great reviews a film like this might earn $25 or $30 million theatrical…maybe. Bruce’s heyday was 40, 50 years ago. This film would lure aging white GenXers and boomers and that’s all. Figure a way to make it for $17.5 million all in and maybe we can talk. Okay, I might approve $20 million but not a cent higher.
“Oh, and the guy who plays Springsteen needs to sorta kinda look like him…right? Jeremy Allen White looks nothing like him. Ridiculous. White-as-Springsteen is as bad of an idea as casting Paul ‘hawknose’ Mescal as Paul McCartney or Joseph fucking Quinn as George Harrison. Seriously…take the needle out of your arm.”
