It's no secret that Metallica's 3D movie Through the Never didn't do too well in theaters. As much as we liked it, nobody really went to see it.
The band is out promoting the DVD/BluRay release of the movie and questions are arising as to why the movie didn't do so well and the band have theories. Guitarist Kirk Hammett was recently interviewed by The Pulse of Radio and was asked about his reaction to the movie doing poorly:
"You know, I really, really felt that we had put our all into this movie. I mean, we spent a lot of time making it, we spent a lot of time editing it in post-production and making sure that it was exactly what we wanted it to be. We spent a lot of time making sure it sounded up to par with, you know, all our other stuff. And, you know, it's just amazing because other than our fans, no one else was interested in the movie."
Similarly, drummer Lars Ulrich was asked by RollingStone.com if he thought the movie would be a commercial success:
Well, I think anytime you do anything, obviously at some point you're disappointed. It seemed with [the 2004 Metallica documentary] Some Kind of Monster, there was a group of people that fell in love the film that that weren't necessarily Metallica fans. And I think that we were thinking that there was a shot of that happening too [with Through the Never] and that didn't happen. Maybe we were disappointed that that didn't happen.
It definitely didn't happen! As for watching the movie on a small screen, Ulrich is not pumped:
Obviously, every single filmmaker on this planet will say the following sentence: "My movie should be seen on a big screen, not on an iPod." [Laughs.] But this movie I would like to say in my own selfish way really should be seen on a big screen. If you'll get something out of it on an eight-inch monitor on an airplane, I think that's totally cool – and obviously I want people see it any way they can but, given a preference, I would rather they see it on an IMAX screen rather than an eight-inch monitor on an airplane. But I can't control that. And the minute you let go of it, you let go of it.
Kirk Hammett was also asked in the same interview if they would ever do another movie:
In a heartbeat, just as long as someone else was paying for it. Not only is it a different experience, but it's crazy how expensive it is to make a movie. It's much more expensive to make a movie than it is to make a piece of music.
The band are keeping a cool head all things considered, even though at the end of the day they burned through over 30 million dollars of their own money. Between this and the "financial disaster" that was Orion Fest, Metallica's bank account surely suffered in 2013. Either way, they did make a great concert film and you can see it for yourself. Order the movie on Amazon.com, plus it's nothing a few live gigs can't pay back.
