For all the excitement and critical acclaim surrounding Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049, it's safe to say that it didn't necessarily translate into ticket sales.
The much-anticipated film only took about $31.5 million in its first weekend in the US box office, which worked out at just a fifth of its massive budget of more than $150 million.
Three weeks on, Blade Runner 2049 has earned just $74 million in total in the US box office, rendering the film a bit of a disappointment in financial terms.
Speaking to Vulture about the takings, Villeneuve revealed he was more worried about letting investors down than suffering any kind of professional upset.
"As a filmmaker, I'm not arrogant," he said. "People put a lot of money in the movie to allow me to make something like Blade Runner. They trusted me, and they gave me a lot of freedom, and they are friends.
"So of course I want the movie to be a success at the end of the day. It's a long journey, but I want them not to lose money."
Some critics pointed at Villeneuve's reluctance to share many details about the film to explain the low box office, arguing that if he'd revealed more about Blade Runner 2049, the film would have appealed to a wider audience than just to those who were fans of the 1982 original.
But the director once again stood by his policy, adding: "I liked the idea that you were supposed to learn it as the movie goes on.
"As a cinephile, one of my best experiences was when I was on a film festival jury. I had to watch 20 movies without knowing anything about them. You don't know the genre, you don't know the country, you don't know the story."
And while he maintains that cinema-goers "want to know too many things" before going to see a movie, Villeneuve did admit he was happy to be able to talk about his film more openly now it's been released.
"I'm relieved to be able to talk about the movie – I spent a year talking around the pink elephant in the room," he said.
Blade Runner 2049 is out in cinemas now.
