Megyn Kelly had a stellar career at Fox News before it all came crumbling down in the wake of the sexual misconduct accusations against the former president of the news network, Roger Ailes.
The superstar anchor left Fox News where she had a huge following and received a contract from NBC where Kelly and the executives expected her loyal fans to follow her there. But that didn’t happen and less than two years later Kelly is no longer on the air.
And things just got exponentially worse for Megyn Kelly after the newest anti-Fox News biographical movie just bombed at the box office.
In the “Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy Gale famously clicks the heels of her glittery red shoes together and utters, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home,” before she is magically transported back to her farm home in Kansas.
Nobody can relate to that moment more than Megyn Kelly who probably wishes every day that she never left her job at Fox News because her career died faster than a shooting star. Once her contract expired at Fox News, Kelly landed at NBC where they gave her a lucrative contract estimated at $15 million per year.
However, much to NBC executives and Kelly’s dismay, her Fox News audience didn’t follow, and the initial love from the liberals fizzled quickly when they learned she actually does lean conservatively. It wasn’t just a gimmick they all hoped for. Her show, “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly” started off hot and heavy but then eventually reruns in the same time slot on other networks began beating her in the ratings.
Then they moved her to the “Today” show five mornings a week and the ratings weren’t much better. NBC needed an answer and they needed it fast. Then they got it.
Kelly claimed on air that she didn’t have a problem with white people dressing up in blackface for Halloween and also admitted that she did it when she was a kid. Colleagues like Craig Melvin and Al Roker blasted Kelly. Even after a tear-filled apology, this was the out NBC needed to let her go once and for all.
The fact is that most people are not empathetic towards Megyn Kelly and it really doesn’t matter which political side you belong to. Whether you’re an avid Fox News watcher or a sucker for the liberal mainstream media, Kelly rubs everybody the wrong way.
That’s why it was surprising to see Hollywood making a film about the women of Fox News, specifically Megyn Kelly (played by Charlize Theron) rise up against the “toxic environment” at the network, called “Bombshell.”
When the first trailer for “Bombshell” went viral on social media, many Hollywood insiders and critics raved that the film was a Best Picture contender at the Oscars. With a cast consisting of Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, and John Lithgow, it seemed like a shoo-in for all the major awards.
But the movie was panned by critics as being superficial lacking any character depth. And the box office numbers were even worse.
More than two weeks into its box office release and “Bombshell” has only made $13 million between international and domestic, which effectively classifies it as one of 2019’s biggest bombs.
Why? Why would a movie with this cast bomb so hard? The critics’ reviews of the film aren’t terrible – albeit they were well below the Oscar hype it was receiving before it hit theaters – it has a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics who gave it poor reviews found something to like so it wasn’t completely dreadful.
Maybe it’s because nobody – liberals and Republicans, progressives and conservatives – don’t really care about the subject matter enough to really care to see it, especially in theaters.
Who wants to see the director/writer and Theron argue the case to build empathy towards Megyn Kelly?
And with the slew of other movies that were available in theaters this Christmas, this is probably the last film on the docket that would be necessary to see on the big screen.