Jonah Hill is annoyed the “best acting” of his career went virtually unnoticed because Amazon Studios chiefs “completely” botched the film’s release.
The Wolf of Wall Street star joined Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, and Jack Black in Gus Van Sant’s comedy/drama Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, which debuted at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in Utah to positive reviews.
However, Amazon bosses, who picked up the distribution rights to the project just before its world premiere, failed to capitalize on the critical praise, delaying its initial May 2018 launch until that July.
The independent project bombed at the North American box office, and ended up with a total global gross of $4.2 million – only just recouping its production budget of $3.5 million.
Hill is still smarting over the film fumble, because he doubts he will ever top his performance as Donnie Green, an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor for Phoenix’s John Callahan, a cartoonist and addict who is left a quadriplegic after a drunk driving accident.
In a GQ chat on Instagram, the Oscar nominee explained the flop was particularly annoying for him because it was his only collaboration to date with Van Sant, whom he describes as “one of my mentors” and “one of my favorite people on the planet”.
“He made a film with myself and Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara two years ago called He Won’t Get Far on Foot (sic) and nobody saw it ’cause Amazon completely f**ked it up,” Hill fumed. “But it’s the best acting I have done and will ever do.”
Critics who saw the film agreed – The New York Times writer Jeannette Catsoulis branded Hill’s performance “revelatory”, while Rolling Stone reviewer Peter Travers praised the 36-year-old as a “marvel of nuanced acting”, speculating about a possible third Oscar nomination and adding, “The actor comes up aces.”
