The Brothers Bloom
Rate Movie[Total: 3 Average: 3]
- Directed By: Rian Johnson
- Written By: Rian Johnson
- Release Date: May 15, 2009
- Domestic Distributor: Summit
- Cast: Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo
Box Office Info:
| Budget: $20 million | Financed by: Endgame |
|---|---|
| Domestic Gross: $3,531,756 | Overseas Gross: $1,999,008 |
After writer/director Rian Johnson scored an arthouse hit with his no budget movie Brick (2006), he landed financing for his follow up project The Brothers Bloom at Endgame for $20 million. The Weinstein Company was tapped to handle foreign pre-sales and the agency CAA repped the domestic rights. TWC kicked off pre-sales at the 2006 American Film Market. In 2007, Summit made the leap from sales agent and financier of projects to a fully functional distributor and they acquired The Brothers Bloom for a high-seven-figure amount in October while it was in post-production.
Summit made their early bid to Endgame, so that Bloom would not make the festival rounds to land domestic distribution. Summit executive Erik Feig said “We took it off the market because it’s a mass-appeal type of project.” But the fledgling distributor had no idea how to sell this “mass-appeal” project and delayed the release and then shuffled it around the calendar. The Brothers Bloom was first dated for April 11, 2008 but was pushed back to October 3 for a limited release and a wide expansion set for October 10. Then Summit pushed it back to a limited bow on December 19 and a wide expansion set for January 16, 2009 but it was delayed again to a limited run on May 15, 2009 and an expansion set in the upcoming weeks.
The Brothers Bloom did premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival in September and divided auds. It landed mixed reviews and many found its quirkiness charming and many found its quirkiness beyond irritating. The movie would also mark the first platform release from Summit. It was booked into 4 locations and pulled in $90,400 and a decent enough $22,600 per screen average. The Brothers Bloom struggled while expanding to more markets and Summit never pushed its release past 209 theaters and it closed its stateside run with only $3,531,756.
After Summit basically dumped the movie, Endgame began their own prints and advertising equity line for their films, so they would have more control over its releases — and their P&A fund began with Rian Johnson’s next picture Looper (2012).
Overseas the movie had a miniscule release, grossing just $1.9 million across numerous distributors and it went straight to video in Spain.