Merchantilism

If you're a working actor making movies, you have no control over when the movie opens, or even if it opens at all.  Once the shoot is over, you're done, unless you're called back to do promotion.

So I wonder how Stephen Merchant felt this weekend when two of his projects opened, Logan and Table 19.  The first is a huge hit, the second a barely-noticed flop.  Merchant does major supporting work in both, and he may be proud of both.  But does he have mixed feelings?

Of course, for every person who sees Table 19, where he looks like himself, there are 50 who'll see Logan, where he's almost unrecognizable under his makeup.  Yet I bet a lot of his friends, and people on the street, for that matter, are congratulating him on Logan, not even aware he's in something else. (I'm talking about the release dates in America.  Merchant is British, and I'm not sure where he lives, or even if he's been doing much publicity lately.)

So congratulations.  If you average the two films, they did pretty well.