Week-by-week, Variety puts out round-ups about how well Hollywood movies are projected to sell at the upcoming weekend’s box office.
Buried partway into this week’s edition, published on Thursday, was a small paragraph about the upcoming film “The American Society of Magical Negroes.”
Helmed by a first-time director and starring relative up-and-comer Justice Smith, the film follow’s Smith’s character as he joins a magical society of black people whose sole mission is to make the lives of white people easier… because doing so makes the lives of black people safer.
Yes, this is an actual movie. Here’s the trailer:
At one point in the trailer, a character recruiting Smith’s protagonist into the “magical society” asks a straightforward question: “What’s the most dangerous animal on the planet?”
The answer?
“White people… when they feel uncomfortable,” the character says. “White people feeling uncomfortable precedes a lot of bad stuff for us. That’s why we fight white discomfort every day.
“Because the happier they are, the safer we are.”
Would you see this movie?
Well, according to Variety, “The American Society of Magical Negroes” won’t exactly be finding much happiness during its theatrical debut this weekend.
Instead, it’ll be finding a box office debut of “low single digits,” which means somewhere around $1 to $5 million.
It appears the film will be a critical failure along with a financial one.
As of Friday, the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score is a rotten 33 percent.
“Though it’s clear that first-time director [Kobi] Libii was intending for the joke to be on white people, the Black characters are drawn with so much misery and self-loathing that the humor rarely lands,” one critic wrote of the film.
A popular post now making the rounds on X certainly suggests audiences aren’t lining up to go see the Focus Features production.
The clip features Geeks & Gamers streamer Xray Girl showing off a completely empty theater ahead of a showing of the film.
As of Friday, the clip has over 240,000 views.
The theatre is packed! #americansocietyofmagicalnegroes pic.twitter.com/GHL4tzmHmS
— Xray Girl 🍷🧈✌️ (@xraygirl_) March 14, 2024
“Alright, here we are! It’s going to be a competition to find a seat,” she said.
One last note: Yes, “magical negro” is a long-established literary and film trope meant to describe a character that specifically exists to support white characters.
This film was clearly trying to turn that trope on its head, but landed flat on its face instead.
