Robbie Williams' "Better Man" Monkey Biopic Failed U.S. Opening

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Overview

Robbie Williams' Better Man Monkey Biopic Failed U.S. Opening refers to the movie Better Man, a biopic on British popstar Robbie Williams from the group Take That, tanking in North American theaters on its opening day in January 2025. In the movie, Williams is depicted as a CGI chimpanzee (monkey or ape). The box office blunder sparked viral memes on Twitter / X and elsewhere, predominantly centered on a promo pic from the film showing the monkey singing into a microphone. American internet users and meme creators thought that the image was funny, akin to a general distaste for the CGI monkey character and confusion about who Robbie Williams was.

Background

In May 2022, it was announced that British popstar Robbie Williams of the group Take That was set to star in a biopic called Better Man about his life.^[1] The film continued to resurface in the Daily Mail UK's coverage in 2023.^[2]

On October 2nd, 2024, Paramount Pictures released the film's official trailer on X^[3] and YouTube.^[4] On the latter, it received over 4.7 million views in three months (shown below).

On January 10th, 2025, Better Man was released in North American theaters, distributed by Paramount Pictures.^[5] The film grossed $580,000 on opening day.^[6] Variety tweeted^[7] about the figure on January 11th, calling it "puny." The post received over 12.2 million views and 1,800 likes in two days (shown below).

Online Reactions

Variety's tweet^[7] inspired a slew of viral quote tweets and replies, like one shared by X^[8] user @SailorSammy93 on January 11th, 2025, who said, "What part of 'We don’t know who the fuck he is' are y'all not getting?" gaining over 137,000 likes in two days (shown below).

On January 12th, X^[9] user @alshipley quote tweeted Variety's post, using an image of Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen with a repeating caption that read, "It's 1999 and corporations are losing millions of dollars trying to make Americans care about Robbie Williams," gaining over 1,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Also on January 12th, 2025, X^[10] user @nikc_is_sad tweeted a Mad Men meme that read, "No one in American knows who Robbie Williams is / That's what the monkey is for!" gaining over 77,000 likes in a day (shown below).

On January 12th, X^[11] user @lunch_enjoyer tweeted the promo pic used by Variety of the monkey singing into a microphone, captioning it, "I just took this pic," receiving over 1,200 likes in a day (shown below).