Whether it's "Novocaine," "Mickey 17" or the "Black Bag, audiences are slow to show up for original films at the box office.

Michael Fassbender cannot lie — the polygraph scene in Black Bag was a bear for him to shoot. Not because he had to pass the test (in fact, his character, George, is the one administering it). But on the page,

“ Black Bag ,” an elegant, quick-witted new thriller that finds Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender playing married spies, isn’t the pair’s first time together on screen. That honor goes to 2017’s “Song to Song,” one of Terrence Malick’s most intangible and head-scratching offerings — though the two stars can barely recall that experience.