120 million dollar budget
8 million 7th place open
Was there a bigger bust this year? Maybe The Last Airbender?
This is even worse. The Last Air Biscuit almost broke even, and actually made money if you include the overseas box (150M budget, 131M domestic, 187M overseas). This film is bleeding cash like a stuck pig.
shareColumbia Pictures heads must be happy they had managed to re-up their contracts a week before this opened.
shareIt suffered a 44% drop in its second week and, according to BoxOfficeMojo, it has not been in theaters since Dec 26. If that's true, thats like not even a dozen days in the box office, on a $120M budget. Just terrible. HOW did this movie have a production cost of $120M? They're licking their wounds with this one. At the very best with DVD rentals etc, they'd be lucky to make back 40% of the production budget, INCLUDING domestic box office gross. Terrible.
shareI saw the movie yesterday (Dec 28) so BoxOfficeMojo is incorrect. However, it was at a TINY theater (albeit a cool one) at the Landmark in West L.A called "a screening lounge" which is quite literal-we sat on a very comfy COUCH. But the theater seated no more than 50-60 people, max. So..yes, very much an unmitigated disaster from a cost vs b.o. ratio. And with this sort of bomb, can't imagine foreign will help much I am puzzled by the utter failure of the film to open because moviegoers in general aren't so hung up on what a film costs, they just want to have a good time..but this was really d.o.a.. obviously the usual older-crowd (over 35) fans of Brooks, Nicholson, Reese, etc stayed home in droves...The reviews were not good, which for a film of this type is a problem, and come to think of it, other than Reese doing some press--I saw her on Chelsea Lately pushing the film, but only AFTER it opened--there didn't seem to be much promotion/press junketing going on at all. I posted on this board earlier today that although it doesn't hold a candle to Brooks' earlier work(s) it was mildly entertaining so the level of it's failure is just puzzling to me.
As to why it was so expensive: the salaries for the four principals and Brooks amounted to about 60 million, his production schedule is nuts--very long --there were reshoots, the sets are very sumptuous (ala Nancy Meyers--down-to-the-spoons-type production design) there were a bunch of producers,none of whom come exactly cheap--on and on. This could be the end of Gracie Films' longstanding deal at Sony, though.Can't imagine with Brooks'anemic output & this that they can justify that overhead. We'll see...
romcomfan
other than Reese doing some press--I saw her on Chelsea Lately pushing the film, but only AFTER it opened--there didn't seem to be much promotion/press junketing going on at all.
I saw the movie yesterday (Dec 28) so BoxOfficeMojo is incorrect.
Airbender wasn't even a bust. How Do You Know, on the other hand, will be going down in history as a huge, huge bust.
I didn't expect anything great from HDYK's box office, but still, the D.O.A. opening weekend was baffling to me.
how do these movies even get made?
shareWhoa, what the hell does this film need $120m dollars for?!?
If you disagree with something, attack the argument , never the person .
I've been scratching my head over this for months now and I still can't figure out how a group of highly intelligent and educated people could make a decision to fund a movie like this with a $120 Million budget??!! Were these people high in the budget meeting? It's sad that no one had enough balls to tell Mr. Brooks that his little rom-com didn't warrant that type of money. This film could have been done with $40-$50 million if the execs at Sony weren't so busy kissing James Brooks's ass.