Hostiles

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  • Directed By: Scott Cooper
  • Written By: Scott Cooper
  • Release Date: December 22, 2017
  • Domestic Distributor: Entertainment Studios
  • Cast: Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Ben Foster, Wes Studi

Box Office Info:
Budget: $39 million Financed by: Waypoint Entertainment
Domestic Box Office: $29,819,114 Overseas Box Office: $5,663,787


The budget for Hostiles was $39 million and it was fully financed by Ken Kao’s Waypoint Entertainment after rebates and Kao’s sales company Bloom pre-sold international rights, which began at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.  Hostiles premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 2, 2017 in search of a domestic distributor and had numerous companies interested in the picture after it landed positive reviews and was considered a possible awards contender.  No deal materialized at Telluride, but that festival was not usually used as an acquisition marketplace.

A week later the picture bowed at the Toronto International Film Festival and while Hostiles continued to receive positive responses, no domestic distribution deal was reached due to the high asking price for the picture.  On October 3, it was announced that Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios purchased the rights for clearly less than the producers were hoping for at $4 million — but the domestic deal came with a solid P&A and wide release commitment.

Entertainment Studios gave the movie a limited bow on December 22, 2017 and launched a strong awards campaign for Hostiles.  The wide release was first dated for January 19, 2018 — which was 4 days before the Oscar nominations would be announced.  Hostiles was first booked into 3 locations and into a very competitive end of year marketplace for specialty fare.  The movie was ignored and pulled in $22,849 with a weak $7,616 per screen average and it continued to struggle in limited release.  On January 16, Entertainment pushed the wide release back one week to the 26th to expand the movie into 5 additional markets on the 19th and hope word of mouth would help the wide launch.  Entertainment Studios invested about $25M into P&A, but tracking was pointing to a high single digits weekend and it was completely shut out from the Academy Awards.

Hostiles bowed against Maze Runner: The Death Cure and was booked into 2,816 theaters and came in slightly above expectations with $10,110,739 — placing #3 for the weekend led by Maze Runner.  Hostiles was expected to leg out over the following few weeks, but it declined 49.5% to $5,108,228 the following session, ending its chances at breaking out.  The domestic run closed with $29,819,114.  Entertainment Studios is not one of the major studios which command the usual 55% of the ticket price — so after theaters take their percentage of the gross, the company would see returned less than $14M.

Hostiles was a non-performer overseas and the recorded cume was just $5.6M across a few distributors.

4 Comments

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  1. One of my favorite films…clean honest poignant…this film delivers believability, and such a great cast and storyline…it’s a “feel good” movie from beginning to end…it’s the TITLE that through everyone for a loop!…THIS IS A GREAT FILM for all walks of life!…don’t miss it

  2. That is a shame. I enjoyed the movie a lot, and lately a lot of modern westerns have been getting better and better, with No Country for Old Men, 3:10 to Yuma, Hell or High Water, or True Grit. I am a bit biased about westerns, I love them, and this one was underappreciated.

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