W.
| Budget: $30 million | Financed by: QED Intl.; Omnilab Media; Emperor Group; Condor Films; Global Entertainment Group |
|---|---|
| Domestic Gross: $25,534,493 | Domestic Distributor: Omnilab Media (through Lionsgate) |
| Overseas Gross: $3,971,971 | Directed by: Oliver Stone |
Starring: Josh Brolin |
Produced by: Jon Kilik |
QED Intl. co-financed W. with Omnilab Media, China based Emperor Group, Condor Films and Global Entertainment Group for $30 million. Australia based Omnilab Media financed the US $25 million prints and advertising campaign through Lionsgate. QED sold international rights at Cannes to distributors, which would pad some of the loss. W. had high awareness going into release, but convincing audiences to show up to a movie about an unpopular president still in office made tracking the pic difficult. Opening weekend estimates ranged from as low as $5 million to over $12 million. W. came within those expectations at $10,505,668 from 2,030 theaters — placing #4 for the weekend led by brainless escapist fare Max Payne and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Audiences gave the film a poor C cinemascore, though considering the subject matter, the film was always going to be divisive — but more troubling was that polling showed that 89% of the audience that paid for a ticket disapproved of Bush and still gave the pic the poor cinemascore. W. declined 51.6% in its second weekend to $5,088,249 killing its chances at breaking out and continued to post steep weekly drops. It closed its run with a disappointing $25,534,493. Omnilab would see back about $14 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, leaving $11 million of the P&A spend at a loss and a portion of the budget in the red that wasn’t covered by pre-sales. W. had little appeal overseas and was given a small foreign rollout across numerous distributors to $3.9 million and went straight to video or television in most markets. Domestic video sales were $8.2 million.