The Bikeriders premiered at the 50th Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2023, and was released in the United States on June 21, 2024. Originally scheduled to be released theatrically in the United States on December 1, 2023, by 20th Century Studios, the release was delayed due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Ultimately, Focus Features acquired the film rights from producer New Regency. The film received a positive reception and grossed $36 million worldwide.
Plot
In 1965, Kathy Bauer meets Benny Cross, a hotheaded member of the Chicago-based Vandals Motorcycle Club, and marries him just five weeks later. Photography student Danny Lyon travels with and interviews the Vandals. He learns from Kathy that the founder, Johnny Davis, was supposedly inspired to create the club after watching Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Johnny's leadership is challenged when he rebuffs a Vandal's suggestion that new chapters be allowed to form. They engage in a fistfight which Johnny wins. He reestablishes his authority but grants permission to expand the club anyway. New chapters begin to form across the Midwest.
In 1969, Benny is attacked by two men in a bar for wearing his colors. His foot is nearly severed by a shovel during the altercation. Johnny forces the owner to provide the names of the men and orders the Vandals to burn down the bar. While Benny is recovering from surgery, Johnny pressures him to come to a motorcycle rally before he is fully healed, to Kathy's objection. Johnny offers Benny leadership of the club when he steps down, but Benny rejects it.
A 20-year-old delinquent known as "the Kid" asks Johnny to allow him and his motorcycle club to join the Vandals. Johnny initially dismisses them but decides to test the Kid by allowing only him to join. When he expresses his willingness to abandon his friends, Johnny rejects him. The Kid attacks Johnny with a knife, who beats him and warns him not to come back.
In 1975, Lyon interviews Kathy about the fate of the Vandals. She explains that Johnny became despondent after the death of his lieutenant Brucie in a vehicular accident, and the club grew increasingly violent after drug-addicted Vietnam War veterans joined the ranks. At a party, longtime member Cockroach is beaten by new members when he drunkenly expresses a desire to leave the club to become a motorcycle police officer. Kathy is nearly gang-raped while Benny is busy taking Cockroach to the hospital and is narrowly rescued by Johnny. Furious that Benny wasn't at the party to protect her, she demands Benny quit the Vandals. Instead, he leaves her for several days. To allow Cockroach to safely leave the club, Johnny takes Benny to stage a break-in at his house, where they shoot him non-fatally in the leg. Perturbed by the increasing violence of the club and again rejecting Johnny's offer of leadership, Benny quits and leaves Chicago for parts unknown.
The Kid, now a member of the Vandals Milwaukee chapter, challenges Johnny to a knife fight for leadership, only to shoot and kill him. Kathy explains to Lyon that after the Kid took over the Vandals, they became a large criminal gang involved in drug trafficking and murder. The older members either fell in line, left to obtain legitimate jobs, or died.
Benny, upon learning of Johnny's death, returns home and breaks down. He and Kathy relocate to Florida, where Benny works as a mechanic at his cousin's garage and has stopped riding motorcycles. Kathy tells Lyon that they are happy, and Benny doesn't miss the biker lifestyle. She looks out the window at Benny, who smiles as the sounds of motorcycles are heard.
The Bikeriders is named after Danny Lyon's photo book of the same title, which filmmaker Jeff Nichols read for the first time in 2003. The story's Vandals MC is inspired by the book's detailing of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. Lyon is portrayed in the film by Mike Faist.[6] Since 2004, Nichols had mentioned the project to Michael Shannon, who has starred in all his films, on the set of each collaboration; while making the short film Long Way Back Home in 2018, Shannon quipped that he had "been talking about that damn idea for so long."[7][8] By 2022, Nichols wrote the screenplay from his original story idea. New Regency agreed to produce the film in May 2022. The project was officially announced with Nichols attached as director in August 2022, with Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, and Tom Hardy on board to star.[9]
Nichols cast Comer after sitting on two awards panels that honored her performance on the one-person Broadway show Prima Facie and after hearing good things about her from Adam Driver, who co-starred with her in The Last Duel (2021). He met with Hardy for the first time at his London residence, admitting to leaving the meeting "kind of punch drunk" before seeing a performance of Comer's in Prima Facie at the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End.[6] The rest of the ensemble came on board soon after.[10][11][12]Principal photography began in Cincinnati, Ohio, in October 2022 and concluded in December.[13][14] Several actors, except Shannon and a few others, learned how to ride a motorcycle for the film;[15] Butler mentioned a motorcycle accident on set: "We were doing a night shoot and hit a patch of wet leaves and I went down, but I thankfully landed on my feet."[16] Adam Stone was the cinematographer, and during post-production, David Wingo composed the score.[17]
Release
Comer, Nichols, and Butler at the London premiere of the film
The Bikeriders premiered as the opening film of the 50th Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2023.[18][2] It was originally scheduled to be theatrically released on December 1, 2023, by 20th Century Studios, to make time for awards season, but it was taken off the release schedule in July due to the SAG-AFTRA strike (July–November 2023), which prevented the cast from promoting the film.[19] Industry sources also cited Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé opening on the same day and New Regency's The Creator (2023) performing poorly in theaters as reasons for the delay. Following this, on November 20 that year, New Regency was reportedly shopping the film to rival studios and streamers for release instead. Insiders at New Regency noted a lack of "time to mount a proper publicity campaign following the conclusion of the SAG-AFTRA strike".[20][21] Two days later, Focus Features acquired the distribution rights, with its parent Universal Pictures distributing internationally.[22] New Regency chose Focus Features because of their previous collaboration on The Northman, which became profitable despite box office disappointment.[23]
In December 2023, Focus Features scheduled the film for a theatrical release in the United States on June 21, 2024.[24] Regarding the film's promotion, Deadline Hollywood noted that after The Bikeriders transferred from 20th Century Studios (owned by Disney) to Focus, the original marketing campaign centered around Comer was altered to focus on Butler and Hardy; opening weekend audiences leaned male. Focus covered half of the film's $30–40million production cost and was reportedly "on the hook" for print and advertising (P&A) expenses.[3]
Reception
Box office
As of August 25, 2024[update], The Bikeriders has grossed $21.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $14 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $35.8 million.[4][5]
In the United States and Canada, The Bikeriders was released alongside The Exorcism and Thelma, and was projected to gross $8–10 million from 2,665 theaters in its opening weekend. It ended up debuting to $9.7 million, finishing in third behind holdovers Inside Out 2 and Bad Boys: Ride or Die.[3] In its second and third weekends the film made $3.3 million and $1.3 million, respectively.[25][26]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 80% of 274 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Fueled by a charismatic cast and the gritty authenticity of writer-director Jeff Nichols' approach, The Bikeriders offers a conventional yet impactful look at motorcycle culture."[27]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 70 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[28] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 73% positive score.[3]
