Little Boy
Rate Movie[Total: 5 Average: 2.4]
- Directed By: Alejandro Monteverde
- Written By: Alejandro Monteverde, Pepe Portillo
- Release Date: April 24, 2015
- Domestic Distributor: Open Road
- Cast: Kevin James, Emily Watson, Tom Wilkinson, Michael Rapaport
Box Office Info:
| Budget: $24 million | Financed by: N/A |
|---|---|
| Domestic Gross: $6,485,961 | Overseas Gross: $10,933,000 |
Little Boy was the heartwarming tale of a little boy who prays for nuclear annihilation in Japan so his pappy can come home from WW2, in this totally misguided $24M budgeted bible movie. The faith based project was funded by an even split between private US and Mexican investors. It has not been reported what individuals or what companies actually contributed coin to the project. Filming began in August 2011 and a 2012 release was initially planned. Despite a bankable cast including Kevin James, Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson, Little Boy did not land a US distributor. Little Boy producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett saw success with the 2013 tv mini-series ‘The Bible‘ and the 2014 feature film that recycled footage from the mini-series ‘Son Of God‘ and finally in 2014 Open Road (joint distribution between theater chains AMC and Regal) took US rights for $1 million.
Almost 4 years after filming completed, Little Boy was finally dated for a February 27, 2015 release and then pushed back to April 24, which was one week after the idiotic Kevin James vehicle Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. The family picture was given a PG-13 rating by the MPAA and Open Road and the producers were denied an appeal to land a PG. The marketing was a grassroots approach, targeting church groups and such and Open Road tossed in a couple of bucks for 411 national TV ads (as per iSpotTV).
Critics hated the picture and Little Boy was tracking for a $3 million weekend. Open Road booked the film only moderately wide into 1,045 theaters and the only other wide opener was The Age of Adaline — as Avengers: Age of Ultron was set to open the following weekend and would claim most of the market to itself. Little Boy posted a $2,750,356 weekend with a weak $2,632 per screen average. It placed #13 for the weekend led by the fourth frame of Furious 7. The following weekend Little Boy sank a huge 68.1% to $878,415 and quickly flopped out of theaters with only $6,485,961.
Little Boy was picked up for release in Mexico by Videocine and it posted a decent $9.6 million, which comprised almost the entire overseas total. The movie saw a brief release in a handful of countries and its offshore cume was $10,933,000.