Blindness
Rate Movie[Total: 3 Average: 3]
- Directed By: Fernando Meirelles
- Written By: Don McKellar
- Release Date: October 3, 2008
- Domestic Distributor: Miramax
- Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, Gael Garcia Bernal
Box Office Info:
| Budget: $25 million | Financed by: TeleFilm; 02; Bee Vine |
|---|---|
| Domestic Box Office: $3,351,751 | Overseas Box Office: $16,493,228 |
Blindness was Fernando Meirelles’ follow up feature to City Of God and The Constant Gardener and the once hot project was brought to the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for pre-sales.
The budget for Blindness
was $25 million and Focus handled the sales and sold 42 markets at Cannes, which covered the entire budget. Canadian TeleFilm invested $2.5 million into the film and received their investment back before the film was even released. Blindness was also a co-production of Brazil’s 02 and Japan’s Bee Vine. Miramax acquired US rights for $5 million.
Blindness landed a coveted competition slot at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and any hype the picture had ended after it landed dismal reviews. After the negative response at the festival, director Fernando Meirelles continued editing the picture.
Miramax originally planned on a platform release on September 19, but because of the weak reviews, the studio abandoned the platform release and instead they opened the film moderately wide in 1,690 theaters — in hopes to pull in as many auds as they can before sour word of mouth spreads. It was dated for October 3 and opened against six other wide releases — Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Flash of Genius, An American Carol, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and Religulous.
It pulled in an awful $1,950,260 — placing outside the top 10 at #12. Blindness dropped a huge 75% to $486,726 in its second weekend and was pulled from release after its second week with a terrible $3,351,751 total. Miramax would see returned about $1.8 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which barely puts a dent in their modest P&A expenses.
FOX released the film in Brazil which posted the strongest international number at $4 million. The overseas cume was a small $16.4 million across many distributors.