Show Dogs

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  • Directed By: Raja Gosnell
  • Written By: Max Botkin, Marc Hyman
  • Release Date: May 18, 2018
  • Domestic Distributor: Global Road
  • Cast: Will Arnett, Ludacris, Natasha Lyonne, Stanley Tucci

Box Office Info:
Budget: $44,381,798 Financed by: Riverstone; Global Road
Domestic Gross: $17,857,020 Overseas Gross: $21,299,834

show dogs 2018 movie
This monstrosity was developed at Riverstone and Show Dogs was the company’s first family project.  Raja Gosnell, who’s filmography should strike fear into the hearts of moviegoers everywhere (Home Alone 3, Beverly Hills Chihuahua), was hired to helm this and his attachment should have been an immediate warning to anyone over the age of 5.  Riverstone had a financing and domestic distribution arrangement with Open Road and the two companies funded the picture.  As for the $5.5M budget figure which was circulated by websites that should have known this was not a cheap indie, a bit of researching effort would have returned documents that show the budget for Show Dogs was $44,381,798  — but who could blame them, because the only bigger waste of time than sitting through this movie, is digging through page after page of legal documents trying to find out how much this ridiculous movie cost.

Open Road was acquired in August 2017 by Tang Media Partners for $28.8M and in October it was rebranded into Global Road, which would release Show Dogs.  Tang had planned to operate the distributor as a bridge between the US and China markets, but these grand plans required hundreds of millions in funding that Global Road did not yet have.  After purchasing Open Road, Tang also had to waste their capital reserves on inherited titles and the first movie released under the new administration was the inexpensive Reese Witherspoon pic Home Again which fizzled with only $27M domestic.  The first movie released under the Global Road banner was the low budget Midnight Sun, which pulled in just $9.5M and then Show Dogs tanked and then the acquisition title Hotel Artemis bombed — and just one year after its launch, Global Road was headed toward inevitable ruin.

Tang had tried to secure $200M to keep Global Road operational, but was unable to do so and in late August 2018, just days before what would become their final release A.X.L., Global Road was taken over by their lending banks.  It entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was sold off to Raven Capital Management for $87.5M.

Unfortunately we are back to Show Dogs.  It was dated for May 18, 2018 and was positioned as family counter-programming to Deadpool 2 and the senior targeting Book Club also opened.  Global Road spent $11.35M on TV ads (as per iSpotTV) and after other traditional means of advertising and distribution expenses, the domestic P&A costs were at least $30M.  Critics were mercifully spared screenings of this by Global Road and those that eventually reviewed it, predictably panned it, with many calling it one of the worst of the year.  Show Dogs had little buzz and was tracking for a terrible high single digit opening.

The film was dead on arrival with $6,023,972 — placing #6 for the weekend led by Deadpool 2.  Show Dogs fell 45.8% to $3,267,165 in its second frame and sank 53.3% to $1,527,370 in its third session.  The domestic run closed with only $17,857,020.  Global Road would see returned about $8.9M after theaters take their percentage of the gross.

Overseas pre-sales to distributors were handled by Open Road and they partnered with FilmNation for this project.  The many distributors that picked up the rights to this stinker saw just $21.2M in overseas receipts and it was dumped straight to video in Germany.

6 Comments

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  1. I was surprised that 45 MILLION was actually spent on a direct to DVD quality film like this. I knew that the 5.5 million dollars circulated online was incorrect, but I wasn’t expecting to see THAT MUCH spent on this. And yes, it WAS released in theaters. I can’t believe it.

    • With these type of celebrity marketed products, I guarantee you that most of the budget was just paying off any celebrity voice they could scoop up. That’s why the budget is so big. Most of the budget is for paying celebrities.

  2. It didn’t help its case that it had to be edited after its first week, due to a scene implying support of sexual grooming coming under fire.

    • A scene implying support of sexual grooming…in a kids’ movie about talking dogs? what the actual fuck.

  3. Their first mistake was trying to make a talking animal movie in 2018, when those movies had died since people (understandably) stopped caring about them.

    Also, how could a movie this cheap-looking cost so much money?

    • Who knows? It’s just like HOW the upcoming “Sonic The Hedgehog” film cost 90 million dollars(though that might be even more after the redesigns, since redoing the visual effects will be quite expensive) to make. Both films really do look cheap. And that’s questionable at best.

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