Amazon has decided to recover ‘The Photographer of Minamata’ to include in the Prime Video catalog the latest film released to date by Johnny Depp. Despite its good reviews, it was an unquestionable failure in theaters, although it helped that in many countries it was not even seen on the big screen. It did reach theaters in Spain, but then it accumulated just over 15,000 viewers.
The movie’s problems
‘The Minamata Photographer’ was a project so dear to Depp that the actor did not hesitate to considerably lower his usual salary. In fact, he did it up to two times, since he initially signed for 6 million dollars and ended up charging half to make the film finally go ahead and not end up sunk by Depp’s scandals. Perhaps it helped that the protagonist of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ saga also works here as a producer.
That did not prevent the problems from reappearing later, since its distribution was so weak that it barely took a million dollars in worldwide collection when its cost went above 10 million. A decisive factor for this was the lack of interest shown by MGM in releasing it in the United States, which led to Andrew Levitasdirector of ‘The Photographer of Minamata’, accused the studio of “bury movie“.
Now all Amazon Prime Video subscribers in Spain will have the opportunity to enjoy this biopic about the figure of W. Eugene Smith, an acclaimed photojournalist who is commissioned to travel to the Japanese city of Minamata. There he will document the terrible effects of mercury poisoning among the inhabitants of the area as a result of the negligence of a chemical company.
By the way, ‘The photographer from Minamata’ finished in third position in the special category of People’s Favorite Film Awarded at the 2022 Oscars. The prize finally went to the hands of ‘Ejército de los muertos’.
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