Richard Jewell | Entertainment News, Photos, and Videos

Clint Eastwood‘s latest film is unfortunately not a box office smash.

Richard Jewell opened to a mere $5 million at the box office in its opening weekend, Variety reported on Sunday (December 15).

The film, about the security guard falsely accused by the media for playing a part in the 1996 Olympics bombing, garnered critical acclaim, but not audience demand.

The movie currently has a 73% Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

This marks the 89-year-old director’s worst openings in four decades. The only one to have a weaker opening was his 1980 film, Billy Bronco, at $3.6 million.

“Given the crowded market, sources estimate that Richard Jewell could tap out in North America with $25 million to $30 million and might result in tens of millions in theatrical losses. The movie cost $45 million to produce,” Variety reported.

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Billy Ray, the writer of the new movie Richard Jewell, is speaking out to defend the film against the threat of a lawsuit from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The movie follows the story of security guard Richard Jewell, who was the prime suspect in the FBI’s investigation of the 1996 Atlanta bombing during the Olympics, even though he was really a hero for discovering the bomb and moving bystanders away.

AJC journalist Kathy Scruggs, played in the movie by Olivia Wilde, was the person who broke the story and the movie is making headlines for alleging that she “traded sex for tips” in the story.

“It is highly ironic that a film purporting to tell a tragic story of how the reputation of an FBI suspect was grievously tarnished appears bent on a path to severely tarnish the reputation of the AJC, a newspaper with a respected 150-year-old publishing legacy,” the AJC‘s lawyer said in a statement.

Click inside to read the statement released by the movie’s screenwriter… More Here! »