Cumberbatch knew 'The Fifth Estate' was a flop
Benedict Cumberbatch believed 'The Fifth Estate' was never going to be a big hit.
The actor's latest movie, in which he stars as controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, only made in $1.7 million in its opening weekend in the US, the worst figure for an opening weekend this year but he doesn't think it ever set out to be populist.
He told Britain's GQ magazine: "Well I always thought that Disney and Dreamworks were odd bedfellows for such a specialist topic, really. The parallel is 'The Social Network', but everyone uses Facebook, not everyone is au fait with WikiLeaks. This was never going to be popcorn multiplex film."
Benedict believes the political drama - which was slammed by reviewers and Assange himself - has been a landmark move for his career and will hopefully see him cast as the leading man in many more Hollywood films.
The British star said: "Whether the film has a big box office or not, the response to how I have performed has done me huge favours. You know, it's the first lead role I've had and it's caused this much attention."
Asked whether the poor box office performance had affected his chances of Oscar nomination, he quipped: "I think so, but then I never really held out for that."
