Producer Basil Iwanyk recently revealed on The Town podcast that two movies on his resume needed an extra marketing push to appeal to a broader audience. One of them was Denis Villeneuve‘s critically acclaimed neo-Western Sicario, which ended up grossing $85 million against a reported budget of $35 million, thanks to a well-timed decision to position it as an action movie. The other film that prompted a similar marketing strategy was released five years earlier, in 2010. It went on to gross more than $150 million worldwide against a reported budget of $37 million. While it certainly had a few action scenes, it was essentially a crime drama. The movie in question remains well-liked among its target audience, and it recently had a resurgence on the domestic HBO Max viewership chart.
According to FlixPatrol, it was the sixth-most-watched movie on HBO Max this week, when the leaderboard was topped by the action film Normal, starring Bob Odenkirk. The crime drama outperformed the star-studded romance movie Materialists, and the action-comedy film Tag. It featured quite a starry ensemble itself, and was headlined by Ben Affleck, with Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Jon Hamm, and Titus Welliver appearing in supporting roles. The movie took place in Boston, and revolved around a gang of bank robbers who find themselves in a tough spot while planning one last job.
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Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
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Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
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01
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Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
02
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Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
03
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Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
04
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Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
05
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How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
06
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What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
07
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How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
08
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Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
09
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What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
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When it’s over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
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The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠 Yellowstone
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🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
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You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
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You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
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Titus Welliver Recently Returned to the Crime-Drama Genre
By now you’ve probably guessed that we’re talking about The Town, which was also directed by Affleck. The movie was critically acclaimed at the time of its release, and is now sitting at a “Certified Fresh” 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator website’s consensus reads, “Tense, smartly written, and wonderfully cast, The Town proves that Ben Affleck has rediscovered his muse — and that he’s a director to be reckoned with.”
Affleck went on to direct the Best Picture-winning thriller Argo, and then the gangster flop Live By Night. He bounced back with the acclaimed sports drama Air, and is all set to debut his latest directorial venture, the Netflix thriller Animals. The new movie will be released on October 9. You can watch The Town on HBO Max, and you can also check out Welliver’s similar crime series The Westies, which is available to stream on MGM+.
Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
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Release Date
September 17, 2010
Runtime
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125 minutes
Writers
Aaron Stockard, Ben Affleck, Peter Craig, Chuck Hogan
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