Brad Pitt and Paramount Pictures have quite a bit in common these days. Both Pitt and Paramount have leaned into machismo to appeal to a wider male demographic; both are trying to salvage their reputations after a string of tumultuous events and bad press; and neither has put out a good movie in over a year. Is it really any wonder that their latest collaboration, the by-the-numbers survival film “Heart of the Beast,” was crushed by a seven-year-old superhero movie?
If you’ve kept up with the headlines, probably not. After David Ellison acquired Paramount and set his sights on Warner Bros., goodwill has been hard to come by for the studio. Likewise with Pitt, a string of abuse allegations from his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, led to the actor favoring producing over acting, stepping behind the scenes to minimize the damage. Perhaps if viewers don’t see Pitt as much, they’ll forget the allegations and embrace him once more as a movie star. When “F1” did gangbusters numbers last summer, it looked as though that strategy might work.
