Arctic Dogs

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  • Directed By: Aaron Woodley
  • Written By: Bob Barlen, Cal Brunker, Aaron Woodley
  • Release Date: November 1, 2019
  • Domestic Distributor: Entertainment Studios
  • Cast: Jeremy Renner, Heidi Klum, James Franco, Alec Baldwin

Box Office Info:
Budget: $61 million Financed by: AMBI Group
Domestic Gross: $5,801,249 Overseas Gross: $4,078,622


The Ambi Group first announced Arctic Dogs (formerly titled Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad) at the 2014 Venice Film Festival.  Ambi head Andrea Iervolino announced at the festival “It’s our first big-budget, CGI animation film that will come from our studio in Toronto, which is a factory of young creatives.”  Ambi’s sales and distribution arm took the project to the 2015 Cannes Film Festival to begin pre-sales.  Ambi never revealed the actual cost, but the budget for Arctic Dogs was expected to be around $60 million — with Ambi fully financing and the pre-sales would limit their risk on this flop.

Open Road picked up domestic distribution rights in January 2017, but the company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2018 and was sold off to Raven Capital Management for $87.5M.  Raven Capital was also one of the main investors in the Ambi Group.  Arctic Dogs was then brought to the American Film Market in late October 2018 in search of a stateside distributor and Entertainment Studios acquired the picture.

“[Entertainment Studios] has outlined a masterful marketing and distribution plan that will allow this film to perform very well and we’re very happy to be in business with Entertainment Studios,” said Andrea Iervolino.  One can only assume this masterful plan for selling this turkey to the public was as detailed as: No critics screenings, spend at least $20M on P&A, book this stinker into 2,844 theaters and pray it doesn’t have the worst opening ever for a movie playing in over 2,500 locations like Entertainment Studio’s first release Friend Request.

It was dated for November 1, 2019 and bowed against Terminator: Dark Fate, Harriet and Motherless Brooklyn.  Arctic Dogs would have competition with holdover family fare Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and The Addams Family.  The masterful distribution plan saved Arctic Dogs from becoming the worst opening ever title holder, as it landed in the 8th worst of all time slot with a dreadful $2,901,335 — placing #10 for the weekend led by the big budget bomb Terminator: Dark Fate.  The movie took a 63.1% nosedive to $1,071,246 in its second frame and then promptly lost most of its theater count.  The domestic run looks to close with just $5M.  More after the run ends…

Arctic Dogs has been theatrically released in a few offshore markets, where the numbers currently sit at $956,170.  This will be updated if any more box office receipts post…

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  1. Just FWIW – ‘Friend Request’ wasn’t Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures’ first release. That was the surprise hit ’47 Meters Down.’

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