Credit: Ludmila Joaquina Valentina Buyo
Sat 1 August 2026 18:45, UK
When names like Al Pacino and Anthony Hopkins are thrown around together in one movie, you’re bound to be thinking that it’s destined for big bucks.
With no less than 15 Academy Award nominations between the pair of them, at the very least, you could be fooled into believing that there would be a decent film to show for it. Unfortunately, that was far from the case with the lesser-remembered 2016 movie Misconduct, because essentially, nobody saw it.
Without wanting to sound wry or cynical, you could tell from a mile away that it was Shintaro Shimosawa’s first time in the director’s chair. But equally, imagine being him in that position: you’ve just secured two of the world’s most legendary actors, along with a fledgling supporting cast including Lee Byung-hun and Glen Powell. You’d be jumping for joy.
Yet with those stellar names and subsequently an $11million budget to go with it, the kind of most important thing is that you deliver a film worth watching. While risking making too blunt a point with this, Misconduct was anything but that. Yet even worse than just being panned by the critics, it barely made any money, either.
And when I say ‘barely any money’, you best believe that’s not an exaggeration. It took just £97 at the UK box office over its opening weekend, to be exact, which, if you were to plan a trip to the cinema these days, might just about reimburse you for your ticket price along with the snacks and drinks. But jokes aside, 97 quid for a film starring Pacino and Hopkins: what went wrong?
There is a major caveat to all of this in the sense that Misconduct was only showing in a minute selection of five regional cinemas across the entire breadth of the country. However, as it turned out, the audiences from Burnley to Kidderminster weren’t exactly bowled over by the rare Hollywood opportunity that was on their doorstep.
Between the five picture houses, the average taking per venue was just £19.40, meaning that no more than a few people saw it across its entire, albeit extremely limited, cinematic run. To be fair, if you never managed to catch it, by all accounts, you didn’t really miss anything groundbreaking. Something along the lines of a ransom, a kidnapping, a lawsuit…you get the picture.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
It was safe to say that for any rising stars at the time, the acting categories in awards season were safe from those two specific big dogs for another year. Above all else, though, it proves that you can have all the money and prestige in the world, but you’re only one bad decision away from a complete movie dud.
Even Pacino and Hopkins aren’t immune. You do have to wonder what they did with their £97, having said that. The cinemas could have rightfully kept it for themselves, but there would admittedly be something quite funny about distributing those slim pickings to the Hollywood greats. At least they could buy a round to drown their sorrows.
