The Kitchen

HELL’S KITCHEN, COLD RECEPTION: THE JUICY, MESSY AFTERLIFE OF THE KITCHEN (2019)

Mob wives, murder, and Melissa McCarthy going full gangster — on paper, The Kitchen should’ve slayed. Instead, Hollywood’s would‑be feminist mob saga turned into one of 2019’s most fascinating trainwrecks. No epic on-set catfights, but the real drama hit in reviews, box office, and fan reactions once the cameras stopped rolling.

Scandals & Career-Low Carnage

• The movie didn’t just “underperform” — it belly‑flopped. The Kitchen opened to a dismal $5.5 million on a roughly $38 million budget, instantly branded a box-office bomb and the worst opening weekend of both Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish’s careers .
• Variety flat-out framed it as audiences rejecting a “serious” McCarthy/Haddish team‑up, noting weak word‑of‑mouth (B– CinemaScore) and harsh reviews helped sink it fast ^[1].
• The Guardian twisted the knife further, calling the film “one film, three career lows” for McCarthy, Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss, and accusing it of “criminally squandering” their combined star power .
• One critic on Medium didn’t hold back, declaring it “the worst DC film that has come out since Man of Steel,” calling the script and editing a “real kitchen nightmare” ^[6].

Studio Shade & “Dumped in August” Drama

• Behind the scenes, the studio strategy has big “we know this is doomed” energy. Warner Bros. originally dated The Kitchen for a prime late‑September slot, then abruptly moved it UP to August 9 — smack in the dead zone of summer where troubled movies go to quietly expire .
• A distribution insider told Variety that the studio “didn't support The Kitchen like a big summer blockbuster from the get-go,” essentially admitting it was never treated as a marquee release ^[1].
• At the box office, it got steamrolled by bigger, shinier titles; analysts pointed to competition from films like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as another nail in the coffin ^[1].
• Fans on Reddit later dissected the whole thing, with one thread memorably summarizing it as a movie that “should have been dumped on Netflix” rather than pushed theatrically .

On-Set Heat vs. On-Screen Ice

• Here’s the twist: there are no credible reports of screaming matches, diva behavior, or on‑set feuds among McCarthy, Haddish, and Moss. In promo interviews, they joked around on talk shows and sold the “sisterhood of the mob wives” vibe.
• But critics and reviewers repeatedly clocked something off about their dynamic. Mediaversity flatly noted “a lack of chemistry between the actresses” that undermined the entire premise of three women rising together in the mob .
• Lainey Gossip praised the potential but roasted the final product as “the biggest disappointment” of the year, saying the three leads “don’t actually have much to do” and are stranded by shallow character arcs and bad structure .
• Boston Hassle took it even further, calling the film “a spectacular failure” and “one of the biggest cinematic disappointments” of the year, suggesting that no amount of charisma from the actresses could save what was on the page .

Faux-Feminist Firestorm

• Beyond box‑office gossip, The Kitchen sparked a mini‑backlash in think‑pieces. Critics argued that the movie tried to ride a wave of #MeToo‑era girlboss crime energy without actually doing the work.
• Lainey Gossip slammed it for flubbing its own empowerment pitch, noting that the script barely explores the different ways sexism and racism shape the lives of Kathy (McCarthy) and Ruby (Haddish) — it raises the issues, then shrugs and moves on ^[2].
• Other reviewers pointed out that the film seemed more interested in “sassy” shots of the women strutting through Hell’s Kitchen in period coats than in building believable emotional arcs, accusing it of prioritizing ~aesthetic~ over substance ^[3].
• The result: fan discussions and comment sections filled with people calling it “fake feminist,” “empty empowerment,” and “Widows but flatter,” with many urging viewers to just watch Widows instead ^[2][3][6].

Wild Trivia & Fandom Fallout

• This wasn’t just a random mob flick — it was a DC Vertigo comic adaptation, quietly making The Kitchen part of the wider DC screen ecosystem. Fans expecting a gritty, faithful, ultra‑dark crime story from the comic felt the movie had been watered down and softened, only to somehow still feel joyless ^[6][9].
• DC itself tried to hype it as a “gritty, female-driven mob drama” in its official materials, but after the flop, the film basically vanished from DC discourse — no sequel talk, no spin‑offs, just a quiet retreat into catalog obscurity ^[9].
• On Reddit and in comment sections, viewers described it as “a mediocre film that tries to take things up a notch in the third act only to become a bumbling mess” and “limp and lifeless” ^[5][6].
• Yet even the harshest critics spared a little love: Domhnall Gleeson’s turn as ex‑gangster Gabriel was repeatedly praised as one of the only bright spots, with some reviewers saying he walked away with the entire movie practically by accident ^[2][6].

Bottom Line

No leaked affairs. No secret lawsuits. No set blow‑ups. The real gossip of The Kitchen is almost more brutal: a dream project with three A‑list women, an Oscar‑nominated writer making her directing debut, DC comic-book IP, and a feminist mob hook… that the studio lost faith in, critics shredded, and audiences ghosted. Sometimes the nastiest Hollywood drama isn’t a feud — it’s watching a surefire hit go up in smoke in front of everyone.