The movie drew huge crowds across the moviegoing and political spectrum, from left-leaning cities to conservative small towns. Its audiences included large percentages of women and older viewers, two groups that don’t typically flock to the multiplex.
“American Sniper” has the look of a bona fide cultural phenomenon. All of which has Hollywood executives, and a lot of other people, scrambling to understand why.
The movie has no doubt benefited from good timing: It hit 3,500 theaters the day after nabbing six Oscar nominations, including best picture. But Oscar love doesn’t always translate to popular success — “The Hurt Locker,” the 2009 best picture winner about a U.S. Army bomb-disposal team in Iraq, earned only $17 million in North America over its entire run.
And until now, audiences have mostly stayed away from films about the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So why has “American Sniper” struck a chord when so many other modern-day war movies have not?
Here are five reasons:
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It stars Bradley Cooper
One of the most popular and charismatic young actors in Hollywood, Cooper has now been nominated for an acting Oscar three years in a row (after “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle”).
To play Kyle, he gained more than 30 pounds of muscle and mastered the soldier’s Texas drawl.
“Bradley did an amazing job and I truly don’t believe there’s anybody who could have done better,” Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle’s widow, told CNN’s Jake Tapper. When her late husband’s friends saw the movie, they told her “it’s eerie how much it felt like Chris … it’s like the spirit of Chris is exuding from Bradley as he’s playing this role.”
Michael Moore explains snipers are ‘cowards’ tweet
