Anti-Trump De Niro: Box Office Poison
03/19/2025 01:40 PM
Robert De Niro used to avoid interviews at all costs.
This critic encountered him roughly 20 years ago and he politely refused my queries. It wasn’t a one-off.
GQ magazine once penned an entire feature in 2006 around the Oscar-winner’s reluctance to chat with the press.
Since he emerged in the early 1970s as one of the most remarkable, intense, and dazzling actors ever seen onscreen, De Niro has rarely agreed to be interviewed. When he has consented, that was generally when the trouble started. Articles about him typically deteriorated into accounts of the interview’s collapse, and of the interviewer’s resulting anger, frustration, acquiescence, or bafflement.
Now, De Niro routinely appears across the media landscape. And he always saves time to rage against President Donald Trump.
Robert De Niro's Anti-Trump Rant Is So Obscene 'The View' Has To Cut His Mic https://t.co/e4YaDC81RNpic.twitter.com/hlBH3NqLFM
— Daily Wire News (@DailyWireNews) May 14, 2024
Robert De Niro drops "f**k Trump" twice in his speech at the Tony Awards before introducing Bruce Springsteen. pic.twitter.com/o4E1WoT5oU
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) June 11, 2018
De Niro outside the Manhattan courthouse just called Trump supporters "clowns."
So much for unity.pic.twitter.com/fKgb36H2KT
— Paul A. Szypula (@Bubblebathgirl) May 28, 2024
Something else changed along the way for the two-time Oscar winner. His box office results have cratered.
The star’s latest film, “The Alto Knights,” is expected to bomb this weekend with a $2-3 million haul from 2,800 screens. That’s a far cry from the film’s $45 million budget.
It’s disastrous, and there’s no one to blame but De Niro.
Twice.
The actor plays the film’s two key roles – mobsters Frank Costello and Vito Genovese. No star is more associated with classic gangster movies than De Niro. Yet prognosticators see only doom for the Barry Levinson film.
It’s hardly the only De Niro bomb in recent years. Consider:
- “About My Father” (2023) – $12 million US
- “Amsterdam” (2022) – $14.9 million US
- “The Comeback Trail” (2020) – No US release
- “The War with Grandpa” (2020) – $21 million US
His last big hit was 2019’s “Joker” which made $335 million. He co-starred as an old-school talk show host who has a fatal encounter with the title character. Joaquin Phoenix grabbed all the attention via his Oscar-winning performance, and the film dropped at the superhero genre’s commercial peak.
Even the biggest stars suffer the occasional flop, but De Niro’s petulant activism has isolated him from a sizable swath of the country.
The star’s legacy remains secure after decades of iconic film performances. Nothing can take that away from him.
- “Goodfellas”
- “Taxi Driver”
- “Casino”
- “Heat”
- “Mean Streets”
- “Raging Bull”
- “The Godfather Part II”
His cartoonish anti-Trump rants, coming as the country coalesced around the unconventional leader last November, are clearly hurting his box office brand today.
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