Sometimes, a movie just doesn't get the fair shake it deserves, even if all the right pieces seem to be in place. Such was the case with the "Bronze". A comedy released by Sony Pictures Classics in 2016, the film was pretty much dead on arrival and barely registered with moviegoers at the time despite being written and starring Melissa Rauch of "The Big Bang Theory" fame.. Mind you, this was when the CBS sitcom was still thriving on the air. So what went wrong?

For those who may not be familiar, The Bronze centers on Hope Ann Gregory (Rauch). Once the darling of America, Hope's performance on a ruptured Achilles in a prestigious gymnastics tournament when she was younger brought fame to her small Ohio hometown. However, in the years after winning third place, she didn't do much with her life. Still living in her father Stan's (Gary Cole) basement, Hope spends her days at the mall milking her infant celebrity. That is, until her routine is disrupted when she learns that she must train the town's newest gymnastics prodigy, Maggie (Haley Lou Richardson), in order to receive a large inheritance.

Commercial director Brian Buckley helmed The Bronze, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. At that time, /FILM gave the film a review score of six out of 10and Sony Pictures Classics ended up acquiring the rights, eventually releasing the film in theaters the following year. Not only does Rauch star, her cast also includes Sebastian Stan ("Captain America: The Winter Soldier"), Gary Cole ("The Office"), Thomas Middleditch ("Silicon Valley") and Cecily Strong ("Saturday Night Live").

On paper, then, The Bronze had an awful lot going for it, including a killer cast, a major film festival debut and a very solid premise. So, once again, what went wrong? Well, a lot, it turns out.

First and foremost, the critics, on the whole, were not on the side of "Bronze". As of this writing, the movie has a pretty poor 37% rating. Rotten tomatoes. Viewers didn't react much better, with an audience rating of just 44%. It's always hard to overcome that kind of critical reception, no matter the genre or who's in your film. There are situations like Venom where critics overwhelmingly dislike the film but audiences disagree. Here? They were largely compliant.

To make matters worse, Sony released the film in the busy March of 2016. To begin with, Disney's Zootopia was in the midst of its $1 billion recordtopping the charts for the third weekend in a row. There were also other crowd pleasers such as "10 Cloverfield Lane," "Deadpool" and "The Revenant" doing business as well.

As for the new releases that weekend, Lionsgate announced them Allegiant, the third film in the Divergent franchise.followed by the faith-based picture Miracles From Heaven, both of which finished in the top five. That didn't leave much room for "Bronze," which finished in 25th place, taking in just $386,328 from 1,167 screens for a dismal $331 per screen average. It was completely DOA and out of theaters in a few weeks, earning only $615,816 in total. The only advantage for Sony here was the budget, which was a modest $3.5 million. So thankfully, it's not like the studio has a blockbuster-sized fortune here.

That being the case, the film made its way to streaming, where it had a chance to find an audience for years to come. To what extent the Hulu or VOD stuff helped Sony recoup its investment is unknown, but there's no two ways about it, this one just didn't work in its original version.

The Bronze is currently available on VOD, or you can grab it on Blu-ray/DVD via Amazon.