Martin Scorcese recalls ‘The King Of Comedy’ becoming “the flop of the year”
Martin Scorcese has featured again on his daughter Francesca’s TikTok account, this time revealing the exact moment he realised The King Of Comedy was deemed unsuccessful.READ MORE: Martin Scorsese almost quit Hollywood after ‘Gangs Of New York’The TikTok video shows Scorcese trying to guess various Gen-Z slang. When quizzed on the phrase “slept on” his daughter helped him out by using it in a sentence, saying, “The King Of Comedy was slept on.”She was referring to the 1982 movie starring Robert De Niro, in which a sociopathic stand-up comedian carries out a series of disturbing acts to try and achieve fame and success.Scorcese agreed with his daughter and said, “People hated it when it came out.”Despite a generally positive reception from critics, the movie made a significant loss at the box office, making just $2.5million from a budget of almost $20million.However it was not a wholly unsuccessful venture, as Scorcese did receive a nomination for the BAFTA award for Best Direction at the 1984 ceremony, losing out to Bill Forsyth for Local Hero.Having clearly not forgotten the criticism, Scorcese then recalled the precise moment he knew that it was “the flop of the year.” He said, “That’s what it was called on Entertainment Tonight, New Year’s Eve ’83-’84.”Reflecting on making the movie in a previous interview with Vanity Fair from 2015, Scorsese said, “[The King of Comedy] is about a certain aspect of our culture, and also about not taking yourself too seriously, even though I do.