Ever since the release of Taken in 2009, it seems that older actors are trying to jump on board the action train. Sean Penn’s The Gunman is the next stop, but his first attempt has not been overly successful.
Opening to very middling reviews (the film currently holds 14% on Rotten Tomatoes and 39 on Metacritic), The Gunman has opened to just $5 million domestically with no word yet on how it did internationally. The reported budget for the film is $40 million, so this is undoubtedly unfortunate news for the various production companies who financed the movie.
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This puts The Gunman on par with other 2015 box office flops Mortdecai, Blackhat, Unfinished Business and Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and is a fraction of what 3 Days to Kill made last year on its opening weekend – perhaps showing that the popularity of this subgenre has started to fall already. Projections for The Gunman are that it will make around $12 million overall.
An adaptation of Jean-Patrick Manchette’s “The Prone Gunman.” Sean Penn stars as Jim Terrier, an international operative who is betrayed by the organization he worked for, and must go on the run in a relentless game of cat and mouse across Europe.
Joining Penn in the cast of The Gunman are Idris Elba (Luther), Jasmine Trinca (Saint Laurent), Mark Rylance (Bing), Ray Winstone (Noah) and Javier Bardem (Skyfall). The movie is directed by Pierre Morel (Taken).
Originally published March 23, 2015. Updated July 2, 2023.
