The Cold Light of Day

  • The Cold light of day box office
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  • Directed By: Mabrouk El Mechri
  • Written By: Scott Wiper, John Petro
  • Release Date: September 7, 2012
  • Domestic Distributor: Lionsgate/Summit
  • Cast: Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis, Sigourney Weaver

Box Office Info:
Budget: $20 million Financed by: Intrepid Pictures; Summit
Domestic Box Office: $3,763,583 Overseas Box Office: $18,421,998


The budget for The Cold Light Of Day was $20 million (after tax credits issued from Spain) and it was equally co-financed by Intrepid Pictures and Summit.   International pre-sales to distributors were handled by Summit, which was to handle domestic distribution, but the company was purchased by Lionsgate in January 2012, which took on responsibilities for The Cold Light Of Day.  

The film was first dated for a wide release on April 6, 2012 but then pushed back to September 7.  The international rollout began in early April and the film bombed in most markets, which prompted Lionsgate to nix the wide release and dump this hack work into a limited release in September.  Theater exhibitors then asked that The Cold Light Of Day be released wide after Gangster Squad‘s release date was pushed back and left lots of empty screens without a movie.

With minimal advertising, The Cold Light Of Day was booked into 1,511 theaters and bowed against The Words.  Lionsgate did not screen this turkey for critics (reviews that eventually posted were terrible) and it flopped with an expectedly poor weekend gross of $1,831,588 — placing outside the top 10 at #13 for the slow weekend led by holdover The Possession.  The film received a rare and truly awful D+ cinemascore from audiences.  The Cold Light Of Day declined 53.7% the following weekend to $847,366 and promptly lost most of its theater count.  The domestic run closed after just 4 weeks with $3,763,583.  Lionsgate would see about $2 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross.

Overseas the film pulled in $18.4 million across numerous distributors.

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