The Finest Hours
Rate Movie[Total: 6 Average: 3.5]
- Directed By: Craig Gillespie
- Written By: Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson
- Release Date: January 29, 2016
- Domestic Distributor: Disney
- Cast: Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster
Box Office Info:
| Budget: $80 million | Financed by: Disney |
|---|---|
| Domestic Gross: $27,569,558 | Overseas Gross: $24,529,532 |
The budget for The Finest Hours was
$80 million, which was fully financed by the mouse house. After the picture bombed worldwide, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced to investors that The Finest Hours will end as a massive $75 million loss.
Disney originally scheduled the picture for release on April 15, 2016 but then pushed it forward to October 9, 2015 for an awards qualifying run and put The Jungle Book in its vacated April date. Disney pushed it back again to January 29, 2016 and a benefit of the new date was an IMAX release, since Disney arranged a slate deal with the giant-screen exhibitor for most of its movies. The Finest Hours was positioned as counter-programming to Kung Fu Panda 3 and it also bowed against Fifty Shades Of Black and the problem picture Jane Got A Gun.
The Finest Hours had been tracking softly, but Disney plowed ahead with an expensive marketing campaign. There were $24.2 million in TV ads going into release (as per iSpotTV), plus millions more in print, online, radio, booking fees, etc — with a P&A spend far north of $35 million. The Finest Hours opened with a very troubling $10,288,932 in 3,143 theaters — even with the benefit of price gouging surcharges of 3D and select IMAX screens. It placed #4 for the weekend led by Panda 3, The Revenant and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Audiences gave the pic a solid A- cinemascore, but the following weekend The Finest Hours took a hit from the Super Bowl and sank 53.1% to $4,826,239. The domestic run closed with only $27,569,558.
The pic did not fare any better offshore, with the overseas cume at a miserable $24.5 million in theatrical receipts. The worldwide total was $52 million and Disney would see back about $28.6 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross.