Glitter

  • glitter box office
    Rate Movie
    [Total: 178 Average: 1]
  • Directed By: Vondie Curtis-Hall
  • Written By: Cheryl L. West, Kate Lanier
  • Release Date: September 21, 2001
  • Domestic Distributor: FOX
  • Cast: Mariah Carey, Terrence Howard, Max Beesley

Box Office Info:
Budget: $22 million Financed by: FOX; Sony
Domestic Box Office: $4,274,407 Overseas Box Office: $997,259


The budget for Glitter was $22 million and FOX co-financed with Sony.   FOX handled domestic distribution and Sony took on offshore distribution duties.  Glitter kicked off a series of studio movies starring pop stars — followed a month later with the equally vapid and unsuccessful ‘N Sync movie On The Line, Britney Spears had Crossroads, Eminem had the critical and box office hit 8 Mile in the works and FOX would soon have the American Idol joke of a movie From Justin To Kelly.  Glitter was slated for release on August 31, but the studio pushed the pic back to September 21 after Mariah Carey had a meltdown on the promotional tour and was hospitalized after making a spectacle of herself.

In addition to her personal issues made public, Glitter was released in the post 9/11 period where the box office was impacted and making matters even worse was the bad buzz trailing this into release.  Reviews were as bad as they come and the movie was quickly reduced to a punchline at Mariah Carey’s expense.

FOX booked Glitter into 1,202 theaters and it was the only wide opener and flopped with a miserable $2,414,596 — placing outside the top 10 at #11 when Hardball led the slow weekend.  Glitter sank 60.9% the following weekend to $945,287 and promptly lost most of its theater count.  The domestic run quickly closed with just $4,274,407.  FOX would see returned about $2.3 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, barely putting a dent in their P&A spend.

Sony dumped the film overseas, where it cumed $997,259 and was sent straight to video in most markets.  The soundtrack album was also a disaster and the EMI Group paid Carey $28 million to terminate their recording contract with her after the poor sales.  Glitter has had a longstanding home on the imdb bottom 100.

2 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Fun Fact: the soundtrack for this film was released on 9/11 so you can tell why this film was a disaster

Leave a Reply to Ben Abramowitz Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *