The Judge

  • The Judge box office
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  • Directed By: David Dobkin
  • Written By: Nick Schenk, Bill Dubuque
  • Release Date: October 10, 2014
  • Domestic Distributor: Warner Bros
  • Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D’Onofrio

Box Office Info:
Budget: $50 million Financed by: Warner Bros; Village Roadshow; Ratpac-Dune
Domestic Box Office: $47,119,388 Overseas Box Office: $37,300,000


The budget for The Judge was $50 million and it was the first project from Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey’s production company Team Downey and this courtroom drama was co-financed by Warner Bros and Village Roadshow and received some additional coin from Ratpac-Dune.  The Judge was slated as an awards contender with an October 10 release date and plenty of heat evaporated from the project when it premiered a month early as the opening film at the Toronto International Film Festival and was met with mediocre reviews.

Warner Bros launched an expensive marketing blitz for The Judge, spending $35.8M on TV ads (as per iSpotTV), plus millions more in print, online, radio, etc., for a domestic P&A spend nearly the price of the film’s budget.  The marketing spend was overkill and the movie was tracking soft between $13 – $17 million.

The Judge bowed against Dracula Untold and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  The Judge came in at the low end of expectations with $13,116,226 in 3,003 theaters — placing #5 for the weekend when Gone Girl led the box office in its second frame and was also siphoning much of The Judge‘s opening weekend target demo.  It held moderately well in its second weekend, declining 39.6% to $7,916,418 but it closed with a disappointing $47,119,388.

A further ad spend across foreign markets added more red ink, as The Judge only pulled in $37.3 million.  Village Roadshow distributed in their home country Australia to a poor $2.6 million.  The worldwide total was $84.4M and WB would see returned about $46.4M after theaters take their percentage of the gross — leaving eight-figures of the P&A expenses in the red and the budget untouched by the theatrical receipts.

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