“The Phoenician Scheme” has Anderson pulled in two different directions, caught between art and business in a time when the two have never been more disparate. The resulting product is just that: a product, with all of the matte pastel appeal of Anderson’s oeuvre, yet little of its memorable charm.

As Comscore Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian explained, Anderson’s films appeal to that core audience but also expand very well and “tend to earn a staggering multiple of that opening limited release revenue,” mainly because of the sheer number of screens they add in Week 2.