The Brave One

  • The Brave One box office
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    • Directed By: Neil Jordan
    • Written By: Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor, Cynthia Mort
    • Release Date: September 14, 2007
    • Domestic Distributor: Warner Bros
    • Cast: Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, Nicky Katt

Box Office Info:
Budget: N/A Financed by: Warner Bros; Village Roadshow
Domestic Gross: $36,793,804 Overseas Gross: $32,993,859

the brave one 2007
The Brave One spec script by the father/son scribes Roderick and Bruce Taylor had been around for a while and originally was moving forward with Nicole Kidman and director George Miller (Mad Max), but both eventually exited the project.  Jodie Foster then boarded the picture and helped bring Neil Jordan onto the the project.

The Brave One was co-financed by Warner Bros and Village Roadshow.  Neither company released any budget information to the trades of the day and there are two budget figures that have circulated online — $70M and $40M, but both are just made up numbers courtesy of boxofficemojo and whatever other site claimed the costs were $40M.

WB first dated the film for June 22, 2007 but pushed it back to October 12.  It was then moved forward to September 28 and shifted again to September 14.  The Brave One bowed against Mr. Woodcock and Dragon Wars.  Tracking was pointing to a high teens opening and was skewing toward mostly female audiences, which were largely turned off by the violent content.  Despite the A-list cast and director, the vigilante tropes drew comparisons to the Death Wish series, which was a deterrent to the audience the picture was marketed to.

Reviews were mixed and it opened below expectations with $13,471,488 though it won the slow weekend.  The Brave One was expected to have strong legs since it attracted an older audience, which normally do not flood theaters opening weekend, but it fell 45.7% to $7,313,437 in its second frame.  The stateside run closed with a disappointing $36,793,804.

The Brave One struggled overseas, where it pulled in $32.9 million.  WB saw the strongest numbers from a mediocre $4.2 million run in Germany.  Australia based Village Roadshow distributed in their home country and the film cumed just $1,788,914.  With a worldwide total of $69.7 million WB/Roadshow would see returned about $38.3M after theaters take their percentage of the gross — far below the worldwide P&A spend and the theatrical receipts would not touch the budget.

After The Brave One disappointed at the box office, Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov got into hot water after an article from Deadline founder Nikki Finke began circulating about how Warner Bros would no longer put females in lead roles — this is also after The Invasion (also produced by Joel Silver) tanked.

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