We Are Not Your Friends
We Are Your Friends, the Zac Efron EDM movie, had one of the worst wide-release opening weekends in history. Bringing in only 1.8 million dollars, it made only four-and-a-half times what Calvin Harris will reportedly make per night at Hakkasan in Las Vegas. It made four hundred thousand dollars less in its debut moment than All Dogs Go To Heaven 2.
This excessive tanking is theoretically unexpected: Efron is bankable (you saw Neighbors, right?); the procedural arts-striver movie (Center Stage, Pitch Perfect, etc.) is an evergreen format; and EDM as an industry is worth a global 6.9 billion dollars a year. But in practice, it makes perfect sense. We Are Your Friends is only good inasmuch as it’s willing to be uncomfortable and embarrassing and existentially complicated, three things that go exactly counter to what a teen who would pay to hear EDM music — which is to say this movie’s target demographic — wants.