Seven years after his last movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, came out, director Gareth Edwards returned to the cinematic space in late September with The Creator, the sci-fi movie following humanity at war with artificial intelligence in 2070. In addition to The Creator earning mixed critical reception, this 2023 movie release has also failed to make much of a splash at the box office, pulling in only $64.4 million worldwide at the time of this writing, despite having a reported production budget of $80 million. It’s an underwhelming performance, to be sure, and while appearing on CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast, Edwards gave his blunt reaction to The Creator’s soft box office numbers, as well as addressed the movie’s legacy.
During Edwards’ ReelBlend visit, Jake Hamilton, who was joined by fellow host Kevin McCarthy, brought up how he was disappointed The Creator wasn’t performing better in theaters, but also brought up how many movies that are considered classics today, including It’s a Wonderful Life and John Carpenter’s The Thing, also weren’t box office hits. As such, he asked for Edwards’ thoughts on how his movie’s been doing and its potential “longevity.” After recollecting how various factors, including him contracting COVID-19, resulting in a “strange finish line” for his The Creator journey, the filmmaker said this:
… I’m not equating our film to those masterpieces you mentioned, but I have always felt… it’s a very strange thing how… it’s not how people feel about your movie on opening weekend, it’s how they feel about it 10 or 20 years later. They might hate it in 10 or 20 years, it might age terribly, but I do feel like if you have to have one or the other, I would go for the latter one. Who knows? We’ll find out, but we’re already proud of it. I would do it all again. I think we’ve come out the other end of it, maybe not box office-wise, but in other respects, I think better off having made that movie than having not. So we’ll see what happens, we’ll just see how it plays over time. I don’t know. Alphie’s out into the world now, and it belongs to someone else.
For those who haven’t seen The Creator, Madeleine Yuan’s Alphie is the AI designed to resemble a young girl who’s capable of remotely controlling technology, and whom John David Washington’s Joshua Taylor ends up befriending rather than killing like he was ordered to do. And speaking of artificial beings in a sci-fi movie, Edwards has cited Blade Runner, the movie about Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard a group of fugitive Replicants, as one of the chief sources of inspiration for The Creator. That made it especially fitting when he brought up the Ridley Scott-helmed movie later on in the interview, saying:
You know what’s funny? I’ve seen a lot of interviews with Ridley Scott about Blade Runner, and everyone talks about amazing it is. And he has a little reaction when people first say it, like, ‘Well it wasn’t at the time.’ And it sort of seems strange to us now that that was true, but it must have been painful for him because he did make a masterpiece. And you mentioned It’s a Wonderful Life, I remember reading that Frank Capra felt he’d made this masterpiece, and then no one went and saw it. This is nowhere near what our film is, but just in terms of the analogy, it’s difficult. But I’m very proud of everyone, and we’ll just see how it ages and how it does over time, but I’d do it all again.
We’ll just have to wait and see if The Creator’s reputation several decades from now is on the same level as Blade Runner (one of the best sci-fi movies) and It’s a Wonderful Life (which has some great behind-the-scenes facts), but for now, Edwards is understandably just grateful that the final product came together and he was able to deliver it to the world. You can watch the director’s full interview on ReelBlend below:
If you’re looking for more coverage on The Creator, read our exclusives on how that breathtaking LAX sequence came together and how the movie’s innovative camera rig allowed it to shoot in some places crews had never been before, among various other stories. If you’ve made it this far and haven’t seen The Creator, you’re welcome to judge it for yourself at your nearby theater. The movie will also likely become available to stream with a Hulu subscription either by the end of the year or in early 2024.