Clint Eastwood, Juror No. 2 and The Substance

For a few months last year, a 93-year-old man got up every morning with determination and went to work, at the same hour when many of us are still sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into nothing.

There would be nothing remarkable in that routine if not for his age—and the fact that his job was, or rather still is, to direct movies. Above all, there is his name, inseparable from the golden age of the Western and yet capable of reaching new generations with dozens of notable films: Mr. Clint Eastwood.

Why keep going, one wonders, when he could rest on a career like his? Perhaps out of a finely honed instinct—an animal drive channeled through artistic creation.

A year earlier, another filmmaker, Coralie Fargeat, had convinced two actresses from very different generations, Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, to take part in a grotesque, uninhibited story. The echoes were clear: The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but with a backdrop closer to Sunset Boulevard in its portrayal of a fading star, or All About Eve in its depiction of youthful ambition trampling the older.

The results could not have been further apart: Juror No. 2 and The Substance. Is there a thread connecting them? Hopefully yes. The truth is, the two share little in artistic terms. Eastwood’s film feels almost made-for-TV, but at its core lies a compelling moral dilemma. Fargeat’s film is story and style at once—risk, excess, and sometimes brilliance, sometimes failure.

Both are reminders that even the most seasoned hand doesn’t always get it right.

Let’s start with the most striking case: Juror No. 2. For audiences in Spain, France, or Italy, the claim may sound odd: it’s a ghost film. In these markets it earned respectable box office and, worldwide, generally decent reviews. But in the United States? Almost nothing. Released in fewer than 50 theaters, with Warner Bros refusing to publish gross figures, it’s safe to assume the box office was dismal.

Variety investigated. Warner executives insisted this wasn’t a slight to Eastwood but rather a gesture of “gratitude” for his decades of work, despite weak box office returns in his last few films. Some voices at the top of the studio even claimed the company “owed him nothing,” pointing to the $2 billion Eastwood had earned them across his career as director. With proper promotion and a release matching his stature, Juror No. 2—almost certainly his last film—would likely have earned far more.

The case of The Substance is less scandalous but just as telling. Initially slated for distribution by Universal, the film hit resistance when three executives—two men and one woman—viewed the final cut. They pushed for re-editing. Privately, the female executive admitted to Fargeat that she wanted to respect the director’s vision, mirroring the very critique at the film’s core: the entertainment industry works hard to silence women’s voices while putting their bodies on display.

Fargeat refused to make the demanded cuts. Universal let her seek another distributor, and the film reached audiences as she intended. The result: a rare triple win. Critical success, with most reviewers behind it. Commercial success, earning more than triple its budget. And festival success, winning Best Screenplay at Cannes.

Each in its own way, Juror No. 2 and The Substance expose the industry’s risk aversion and short-sightedness. The result is that some of the voices worth hearing are drowned out by the grinding gears of a machine as clunky as Hollywood itself.

—Carlos Polanco