He's not the Last Movie Star — that's Tom Cruise - but Brad Pitt is making a run at the title.
The Oscar winner's last film, "F1," opened modestly last year, and it looked to lose Team Apple millions. A funny thing happened along the way.
The movie refused to leave theaters. Turns out director Joseph Kosinski ("Top Gun: Maverick") knows a thing or two about populist filmmaking. Word of mouth began to rev up, and "F1" outraced much of the competition.
"F1" may have opened to $57 million in June of 2025, but the Pitt vehicle ended up earning $189 million stateside and another $444 million overseas.
Voila, it's a hit, and a sequel is in discussion. Now, Pitt is doing it the hard way. Again.
His latest film, "Heart of the Beast," is an emotional tale of a retired Special Forces veteran and his combat K-9 companion, Odin. The two served overseas together, but now they're looking for a place to heal. A trip to soak in the Alaskan wilderness goes awry when Pitt's character suffers a heart incident mid-flight on their one-person plane.
The duo are stranded in the wild with nothing but their military training and, well, "heart" to guide them to safety.
"Heart of the Beast" opened to $20 million, facing stiff competition in the process. Think "Primetime," "Resident Evil" and "Practical Magic 2." The movie fell 45 percent in week 2, a solid but unremarkable hold. The following week it sank just 32 percent. The most recent numbers? The film fell 35 percent.
That's a good hold, meaning people are telling their friends about the film.
Meanwhile, recent A-list projects like "The Social Reckoning" (an anti-Trump screed) and "Digger" (a Climate Change screed) crashed 69 percent and 71 percent over the weekend, respectively. Last week's box office champ, "Other Mommy," tumbled by 70 percent.
The people are speaking. Again.
What do the Pitt films have in common besides their leading men? Each is heartland friendly, for starters. No messages. No lectures. Pure escapism.
Both feature main characters coming back from extreme adversity. Pitt's "F1" character must silence the naysayers who have haunted him throughout his career. He's up against a much younger driver, someone who everyone expects to be the sport's next champion.
Pitt's Special Forces veteran in "Heart of the Beast" faces steeper odds. It's a survival yarn that speaks to our common humanity and resilience. Man and dog stand alone against Mother Nature and the animals that lurk in the woods. It's a heart tugger from start to finish, a perfect film for anyone who understands a dog's undying loyalty.
Director David Ayer ("End of Watch," "Fury") expertly captures how a soldier might use everything at his disposal to survive, but it's the relationship between the two characters that will have even the burliest of filmgoers reaching for a tissue.
Two old-fashioned stories featuring a movie star who understands what audiences want to see. Two underdog projects that started small but slowly built an audience.
The budgets for both films were too high on paper. Even the smaller scale "Beast" cost $82 million, a pretty penny considering the miniscule cast and lack of razzle-dazzle effects.
Both persevered thanks to stories that resonate with the public. More, please.
