Hollywood Relabels Colossal Flop “One Battle After Another” as a Comedy for Giant PR and Awards Rescue

Just when you thought it was safe to call a flop a flop, Hollywood is not having any of it. The extremely left film that glorifies all kinds of division, One Battle After Another, was a shocking financial disaster for Warner Bros Discovery and a black eye for Leonardo DiCaprio’s career. But the PR wizards of Warner are hard at work with their Hollywood colleagues to make all that fail just disappear. This time, however, their techniques are truly something to behold!

WBD has quietly shifted Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another into the Golden Globes’ Musical/Comedy race, a strategic call awards-watchers have seen before, but maybe never so callously. Trade coverage confirms the studio’s submission in comedy, instantly scrambling that field.

A pregnant woman fires a weapon in the trailer to One Battle After Another – YouTube, Warner Bros. UK & Ireland

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And no, for those of you keep score, One Battle After Another was never written as, conceived as, nor marketed as a comedy. So why then are they shifting it post-release into a different genre it has no earthly place in being? Let’s read on.

Here’s what they’re really up to.

The Globes have long allowed studios to choose a category, with an HFPA committee empowered to overrule—but genre-bending contenders still slip into Comedy/Musical when Drama looks brutally competitive. The most famous case is The Martian, which won Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical in 2016, prompting rule tightening and endless think-pieces about category gaming.

Leonardo DiCaprio readies himself in the trailer to One Battle After Another – YouTube, Warner Bros. UK & Ireland

There are plenty of reasons for One Battle After Another, an obvious action political thriller, to be moved to comedy. None of those reasons are because it’s a comedy. It isn’t. But this entire $600m break-even box office bust was made for awards and to stick it to conservatives. So since it’s failing at every objective it had, and Hollywood can’t stand that, it’s time to force a way for awards to come raining down on Leo.

On ticket sales, One Battle After Another is performing like a prestige thriller with commercial heat, not a breakout comedy. Domestically, it has earned $68,478,271 to date. That total would slot it behind the year’s true comedy leaders Freakier Friday and The Bad Guys 2 if you line them up purely by 2025 comedy grosses.

• Freakier Friday – $94.2M domestic (No. 1 comedy of 2025 YTD)

• The Bad Guys 2 – $82.5M domestic (No. 2)

• One Battle After Another – $67.8M domestic (would be No. 3 if counted as a “comedy”)

• The Naked Gun (2025) – $52.6M domestic (No. 3 without OBAA; No. 4 if OBAA joins)

Globally, however, the optics look a little rosier. The Bad Guys 2 sits around $236M worldwide, but Freakier Friday is closer to $153M; One Battle After Another has cleared roughly $191M worldwide so far, good enough to place it No. 2 among that trio on a global basis.

Leonardo DiCaprio uses a phone in the trailer to One Battle After Another – YouTube, Warner Bros. UK & Ireland

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The hope then would be that Warner Bros could claim The Bad Guys 2 is an animated family film, not a comedy… and thus, One Battle After Another is the #1 comedy of the year. And surely awards ceremonies couldn’t ignore then #1 comedy of the year which also goes after their favorite ideological foes.

Here’s the likely plan:

1. Easier path to a “#1 comedy” talking point (with qualifiers).
   While OBAA can’t claim domestic #1 against the year’s broad comedies, it can spin selective wins, e.g., top live-action adult “comedy” worldwide or highest-grossing awards-caliber comedy/dramedy, the kind of micro-superlatives studios love in ads. That mirrors past Globes strategizing where placement enables clean, promotable victories even if the film isn’t the literal top earner in the marketplace.

2. Best chance at a statue.
   The Globes’ Drama side is typically stacked with heavyweight Oscar frontrunners. Comedy/Musical is both narrower and friendlier to tonal hybrids. If voters embrace OBAA’s satirical streak and PTA’s star-powered ensemble, the film can contend for Picture (Comedy/Musical) and Lead Actor without running headlong into the season’s dominant dramatic juggernauts. It’s the same logic that made The Martian’s route effective.

Re-labeling One Battle After Another as a comedy for the Golden Globes is less about redefining its DNA and more about creating the best pathway to wins, and to marketable claims during voting.

Leonardo DiCaprio looking devastated in the trailer to One Battle After Another – YouTube, Warner Bros. UK & Ireland

It won’t make OBAA the domestic “#1 comedy of 2025,” but it does give Warner Bros. plausible bragging rights with carefully framed worldwide metrics and, more importantly, its best genre shot at an actual trophy in January.

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