Third Person

  • Rate Movie
    [Total: 4 Average: 2.3]
  • Directed By: Paul Haggis
  • Written By: Paul Haggis
  • Release Date: June 20, 2014
  • Domestic Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
  • Cast: Liam Neeson, Maria Bello, Mila Kunis

Box Office Info:
Budget: $28 million Financed by: Corsan
Domestic Gross: $1,021,398 Overseas Gross: $1,597,796

Third Person 2014
The budget for Third Person was $28 million and it was entirely financed by the now bankrupt Belgian company Corsan.   Corsan head Paul Breuls was finally arrested in 2017 after running the film company as a criminal enterprise.  Corsan was supposed to have a business model that involved funding through Belgian tax credits and also operate as a legal tax shelter for individual investors — but Breuls never gave investors their tax certificates and basically stole their money.  Fraud, forgery and money laundering helped finance Third Person.

Based off of the strong cast, toplined by Liam Neeson and Mila Kunis, the picture was pre-sold to 23 markets before editing was completed.  Third Person premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2013 and it was very poorly received and landed awful reviews.  Despite the bankable cast, Third Person landed in a commercial deadzone with limited appeal and the poor reviews would limit even art house appeal.  Sony Pictures Classics picked up the US, German and Scandinavian rights for just $1 million (as per the hacked Sony emails from WikiLeaks).

SPC opened Third Person in the US in 5 theaters to $38,856 with a not very promising $7,771 per screen average.  It expanded to 18 locations in its second frame to a poor $74,535 and 34 theaters in week three to $106,370.  Third Person expanded to 227 theaters in its fourth weekend to $238,026 with a terrible $1,049 per screen average and it quickly lost its theater count and closed with only $1,021,398 in the US.

Third Person was given a brief theatrical rollout overseas and pulled in just $1.5 million across numerous distributors.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *