Deadline reports that despite rave reviews, Spencer had a weak opening at the box office. The Princess Diana pseudo biopic only managed $2.149 million on 996 screens, with a per-screen average of just $2,158. The ongoing pandemic continues to hammer the box office and despite Kristen Stewart‘s strong performance as the tragic historical figure, people were not ready to show up for Spencer.
The film hit theaters on Nov. 5 and focuses on three days of Diana’s life as she realizes that her marriage to Prince Charles is truly over. Stewart has spoken at length about the care and consideration she put into playing the People’s Princess. Speaking to The Los Angeles Times, following the film’s North American premiere at Telluride, Stewart shared that she felt some “spooky, spiritual feelings making this movie.” The actress added, “Even if I was just fantasizing. I felt like there were moments where I kind of got the sign-off.”
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“[Diana] felt so alive to me when I was making this movie, even if it’s all between the ears and it was just a fantasy of mine. But there were moments where my body and mind would forget she was dead,” Stewart told the L.A. Times. “It was … a fight to keep her alive every day, and so remembering that she was dead was just absolutely lacerating. It just destroyed me constantly. And that itself felt spiritual … there were times where I was like, ‘Oh, God,’ almost like she was, you know, trying to breakthrough. It was weird. And amazing. I’ve never felt anything like it in my life.”
Director Pablo Larraín, best known for directing Natalie Portman in Jackie, explained that the film was a fictionalized account of real events, likening the film to a “fable” in its tone and intent. “It’s the only way to do it. You have to start with things that are real, and that’s why, before the movie starts, you can read on the screen that it says it’s a fable from a true tragedy,” Larraín told Buzzfeed News. “Many things are real facts — the context, the events that actually did happen. But once you are inside, once the doors are closed, all you have is a sort of fiction and we just imagine how could that be, but always understanding that we’re not doing a documentary. We’re doing a fable.”
