Loser
Rate Movie[Total: 3 Average: 2.3]
- Directed By: Amy Heckerling
- Written By: Amy Heckerling
- Release Date: July 21, 2000
- Domestic Distributor: Sony
- Cast: Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari, Greg Kinnear
Box Office Info:
| Budget: $20 million | Financed by: Sony |
|---|---|
| Domestic Gross: $15,618,626 | Overseas Gross: $2,786,080 |
The budget for Loser was
$20 million and it was financed by Sony and was director Amy Heckerling’s follow up project to her 1995 hit Clueless.
When American Pie became a surprise smash in July 1999, Jason Biggs immediately signed onto two studio projects Loser and Boys And Girls — which he filmed simultaneously. His American Pie co-star Mena Suvari also top-lined this pic. Loser was filmed as a R rated movie and according to Heckerling’s agent Ken Stovitz, he said “That movie was ruined in post. Loser was really good until the studio said, ‘No, you’ve got to make it PG-13 rather than R,’ and it ruined the movie. Just ruined the movie.” We’ll take his word for it, because the edit of Loser released to the public is a piece of shit. It was dated for July 21 and the first of the two interchangeable Jason Biggs comedies Boys And Girls was dated on June 16.
Loser bowed against What Lies Beneath, Pokemon: The Movie 2000 and The In Crowd. It would also be competing for auds against the holdover R rated comedies Scary Movie and Me, Myself and Irene. Loser was poorly reviewed and tanked with $6,008,611 — placing #8 for the weekend led by What Lies Beneath. Audiences gave the movie a crummy C+ cinemascore and it sank 55% to $2,705,545 the following weekend. It plummeted 76.5% in its third session to $636,586 and promptly lost most of its theater count. The domestic run closed with just $15,618,626. Sony would see returned about $8.5 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would not cover much of the P&A expenses or any of the budget.
Sony did not do much with Loser overseas and it cumed only $2.7 million.
In Sony’s quarter financial filing they wrote: “motion picture operating results this quarter suffered from the disappointing performance of Loser in the U.S. theatrical market.“
After the poor reception and box office of Loser, Amy Heckerling saw her studio offers dry up. She said: “Oh, I don’t like to even think about that one anymore. It certainly didn’t do me any good. [But] I look at the careers of a lot of men who have had much, much, much bigger flops than that and did not get treated the same.” She had to get financing outside the studio system for her followup I Could Never Be Your Woman (2008) and the picture was sent straight to video after the shady financier Philippe Martinez botched the distribution.
This movie sucked so bad. I saw this in theaters when I was 14 and even I knew college was absolutely nothing like how it’s portrayed in this. Also, Everclear’s appearance in this has to be the nadir of the post-grunge movement. I wonder if they were told it was going to be an edgy R-rated flick and got suckered in that way.