This quote by Kevin McDonald is likely describing the initial movie he was involved in. It indicates that he and the other individuals associated with the movie had high expectations for it, but it ended up refraining from doing well. This can imply that the movie was not well obtained by movie critics or audiences, or that it did not make adequate money to be considered a success. It might also indicate that the film was not well-promoted or marketed, bring about its failing. Regardless, the quote indicates that the people associated with the movie marvelled as well as let down by its failing. It is a suggestion that despite having high expectations, success is not always guaranteed.
"After the atomic bombs were dropped, the war ended and we went into Tokyo Bay with the rest of the fleet, the Missouri and the rest of them, while they signed the terms of surrender that ended the war"
"On the eighteenth of December 1972, when we thought we were getting another of the hundreds of little tactical air raids, we heard the bombs going in out there in the railroad yards and this went on for about thirty minutes"
"I think it has other roots, has to do, in part, with a general anxiety in contemporary life... nuclear bombs, inequality of possibility and chance, inequality of goods allotted to us, a kind of general racist, unjust attitude that is pervasive"
"I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed"