Why do great movies like 'Booksmart' bomb?

The critically acclaimed new comedy Booksmart didn't just underperform at the box office this past weekend. It was obliterated. It grossed under $10 million in its wide debut, pretty much nailing it as dead on arrival from a commercial perspective.

To add insult to injury, the weekend's 'winner' was a poorly reviewed live action remake of Aladdin, yes the one with a blue Will Smith in it.

Hopefully, like other great recent overlooked films like Eighth Grade, Green Room and It Follows, Booksmart will find its audience eventually and be appreciated for the very special movie that it is. Still, it's failure is really disheartening, especially if like me you want to see Hollywood continue to make emotionally grounded, earthbound movies about human beings.

That shouldn't be too much to ask. Films like this don't always underperform. But the trend of films like this flopping does seem to be increasing with each year. And, it won't be lost on some less enlightened industry executives that this was a film starring two women, written by a woman and directed by a woman. The financial failure of this film will hang around their necks.

But they of course were not responsible for the advertising of this movie, which I believe made a fatal mistake in minimizing this movie to being a 'female Superbad."

Sure, the plots of both films are fairly similar -- nerds want to out of high school with a bang, hilarious hijinks take place when they do for better of worse.

Superbad was a very funny movie (although I haven't revisited it in years) but it only scratches the surface of this substance here. There is not broad, goofy 'McLovin' narrative to placate people just looking for laughs.

This film is has more in common with a more like LadyBird, but with admittedly a lot more laughs.

I have a hunch that a lot of people heard the Superbad comparison and thought: well, I saw that movie so I don't need to rush to see that one. It wasn't positioned as a comedy event the way Superbad or even Bridesmaids was -- and since its stars are not household names yet, the movie needed a bigger push than it got.

My hope is the unfortunate financial performance will motivate studios to market female-led comedies better rather than not making them at all. And they should sell a movie on its own terms rather than linking it to a predominately male version of a similar story that came earlier.