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The Rock Remembers ‘Disastrous’ Response to Southland Tales in 2006
The Rock is a big-name film star now, but there was a time that he was far from a box office guarantee. Case in point: Southland Tales. The 2006 film arrived in good shape to be a critical darling, if not a commercial one; it had a highlighy recognized cast in Rock, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, and Justin Timberlake. What’s more, it was directed by indy darling Richard Kelly, who is lauded for his work on Donnie Darko.
Sadly as it turned out, Southland Tales was not fated to be a darling of any kind. The film infamously bombed at Cannes, with “deafening” boos and widespread derision. The film would go on to gross just $374,000 against a budget of $17 million, and Rock recalled the film’s failure in a post to Twitter as you can see below:
Disastrous is an understatement. I’m grateful for the few hard earned career lessons I learned in Cannes in 2006. But art can be a wild and funny thing years later as its perception changes its reality. @JRichardKelly #SouthlandTales https://t.co/4oSxtQHlAJ
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) May 22, 2019