10 Years Later, This $547M War Movie Is Still the Highest Grossing One
What did the trick?
Different genres of movies attract different audiences, but there are films that can be appreciated by a huge range of viewers. The best example? The war movie genre.
There are hundreds of them created, providing the viewers with many stories told from different perspectives. For example, within many films about WW2, you can find some focusing on the horrors of the battles, as well as others choosing to mostly revolve around people left in the unknown in the rear.
Unfortunately, there were and still are so many wars that it’s actually only a question of choosing which of them to portray in a movie. In 2014, Clint Eastwood picked the war in Iraq for his movie that still tops the genre’s box office charts, even though it’s been 10 years.
American Sniper is primarily a biographical war drama focused on a sniper named Chris Kyle, brilliantly played by Bradley Cooper, whose character became the most successful sniper in the war with a fearsome and impressive body count.
The film was a commercial success: with a budget of just over $58 million, the opening weekend alone brought Eastwood $107 million. The total box office was $547.4 million, which, even ten years after its release, is still the highest one ever for a war film.
Is American Sniper Worth Watching?
Despite such huge popularity among viewers, the movie got controversial reviews. Many people liked it, especially because of Cooper’s performance, but there were still questions about the personality he was portraying.
“I'm not American and never heard of this guy before, but even if everything that happened in the movie was true, that still doesn't seem like reason enough to call the guy a hero to me. The ending scenes were just weird to me. He never really did anything heroic in the movie. Was it really just his high kill count?” Redditor AmbroseB said.
The film has a 72% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with its audience score being 12% higher. If you want to make up your own mind about American Sniper, it's easy: just tune in on Netflix, Hulu, or Prime.