THE PINK PANTHER 2

The Pink Panther 2

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  Genre(s): Comedy

• Directed By: Harald Zwart
• Written By: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber, Steve Martin
• Release Date: February 6, 2009
• Domestic Distributor: Sony
• Cast: Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer, Alfred Molina
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Box Office Info:

Budget: $60 million	Financed by: MGM; Sony
Domestic Box Office: $35,922,978	Overseas Box Office: $40,023,637

The Pink Panther 2 was released during the short MGM era of Mary Parent, Chairman of the Motion Picture Group and Co-CEO.  Mary Parent entered the mess that was MGM in March 2008, which was crippled by $3.7 billion in debt, massive interest payments and a looming bankruptcy.  A small equity fund, along with the money earned from its large library of films, kept the studio running on fumes.  Marty Parent was hired to mine the MGM catalogue and develop franchises based off their previous properties and James Bond and The Pink Panther were to be their flagship series.

After the box office success of the 2006 Pink Panther installment ($158 million worldwide), MGM partnered with Sony (which owned a majority share of MGM) to finance The Pink Panther 2 for $60 million.  Sony handled distribution duties.  The Pink Panther 2 was dated for February 6 and there was a very strong marketing push.  It bowed against He’s Just Not That Into You, Push and would compete for family auds with Coraline.  This moronic family pic would also have direct competition with the brain-dead family pic Paul Blart: Mall Cop (also released by Sony) in its fourth frame.  Reviews were awful (which did not hurt the first installment) and it came in far below expectations with $11,588,150 — placing #4 for the weekend led by He’s Just Not That Into You.  Sony expected the sequel to have a large multiplier and strong word of mouth and it dropped a modest 26.5% in its second weekend to $8,513,476 but ended its chances at breaking out when it declined 55.3% in its third weekend to $3,802,292.  The Pink Panther 2 closed its domestic run with $35,922,978.

The sequel continued its diminishing returns overseas with about half the gross of the 2006 movie.  Sony expected strong international appeal for The Pink Panther 2, but it stalled at a $40 million cume.  The worldwide total was $75.9 million and after theaters take their percentage of the gross, Sony would see returned about $41.75 million — which wouldn’t even cover the expensive worldwide P&A spend.