xXx: State Of The Union

  • xxx: state of the union box office
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  • Directed By: Lee Tamahori
  • Written By: Rich Wilkes, Simon Kinberg
  • Release Date: April 29, 2005
  • Domestic Distributor: Sony
  • Cast: Ice Cube, Samuel L. Jackson, Willem Dafoe

Box Office Info:
Budget: $113.1 million Financed by: Revolution Studios; Sony
Domestic Gross: $26,873,932 Overseas Gross: $44,148,761


One of the biggest money losers, xXx: State Of The Union was co-financed by Revolution Studios and when the company shut down and its library went on the market, the actual cost of the film was listed as $113.1 million.  This fiasco ended as a loss of at least $100 million.  Revolution’s financing slate agreement with Sony had them contribute 42.5% of the budget and 100% of the marketing costs.  Revolution head Joe Roth had landed one of the greatest studio deals ever with Sony, who had more to lose on each project than Roth’s Revolution — and had originally envisioned his company making filmmaker friendly fare with A-listers and then squandered Revolution’s reserves on mostly lousy movies like this.

Original xXx helmer Rob Cohen turned down the sequel to direct the box office disaster Stealth and Vin Diesel turned it down because he was prepping The Chronicles of Riddick and did not want to star in back to back sequels.

Sony first dated the picture for May 13, but moved it forward to April 29, where it would bow against The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. xXx: State of the Union was booked very wide into 3,480 theaters and was tracking for a debut north of $20 million. xXx2 received mostly terrible reviews and came in way below expectations with $12,712,272 — one of the worst openings for a film playing in over 3,000 theaters.  It placed #3 for the weekend led by The Hitchhiker’s Guide.  Just days after the awful opening, Sony made it clear that they would not continue with the Revolution arrangement, which was set to expire at the end of 2006.

The sequel fell a steep 56.6% in its second frame to $5,520,628 and sank 61.3% to $2,134,772 in its third frame and was pulled from release after 5 weeks with only $26,873,932.  Sony would see returned about $14.7 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would leave much of their expensive P&A spend in the red.

Overseas, xXx: State of the Union pulled in poor numbers for such an expensive film and a soft $5 million from the UK posted the strongest showing.  The overseas total was $44,148,761 and the poor worldwide total derailed the almost-a-franchise and stopped the studio from going forward with another installment.  Director Lee Tamahori’s follow up movie was also for Revolution and was the expensive flop Next.  A belated third installment, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage was released in 2017.

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  1. Sony had a terrible 2005, there’s no question about that. It dropped all the way down from first among the studios in 2004 to fifth in 2005. Thankfully, 2006 would be their biggest yearly gross ever up to that time.

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