Paramount is #sorrynotsorry about Jennifer Lawrence's 'mother!'

Reactions to Jennifer Lawrence's mother! have been ... mixed, to put it nicely. While critics generally liked it, audiences mostly revolted, making mother! the rare movie to earn an F Cinemascore.

Paramount Pictures, though, would like you to know that it's very much standing by its oddball release. Megan Colligan, the studio's worldwide president of marketing and distribution, made that clear in a comment released to The Hollywood Reporter:

This movie is very audacious and brave. You are talking about a director at the top of his game, and an actress at the top her game. They made a movie that was intended to be bold. Everyone wants original filmmaking, and everyone celebrates Netflix when they tell a story no one else wants to tell. This is our version. We don't want all movies to be safe. And it's okay if some people don't like it.

Complaining that "everyone likes it when Netflix does it" is an awkward move. Netflix, despite its efforts to break into film, is still better known for TV, and it operates on an entirely different business model from a studio like Paramount.

Colligan's larger point, though, is sound. It is refreshing to see a major studio release something as strange and vexing as mother!, at a time when it feels like studios are mostly interested in superheroes and sequels.

mother! may not have set the weekend box office on fire, but its numbers are actually pretty solid given the kind of movie it is. Here's hoping Paramount takes those figures as encouragement to greenlight more "audacious and brave" projects in the years to come.