Making the Movie Filmmaking tips, resources, reviews, news and links.

Box Office Fizzle

It's official: Orlando Bloom can't open a movie.

Frankly, Kingdom of Heaven was always going to be tough sell. It doesn't help that the movie itself knew this, and decided to be tepid. Every character is either noble or a fanatic, and the moral is quite simple: avoid religion if you can, and at least be tolerant if you can't. I saw it with an opening night crowd, and there was little energy generated, even in the action sequences.

Gitesh Pandya, the Box Office Guru, who had predicted Bloom wouldn't get his tween crowd in the R-rated door, had this to say:

Even Scott's own Gladiator fared better five years ago this weekend when it bowed to $34.8M on its way to $187.7M and five Academy Awards including Best Picture. Oscar buzz is not surrounding his latest effort as reviews were mixed. Adult men made up the core crowd as studio research showed that the audience consisted of 52% males and 66% were of age 25 and over. Bloom, anchoring a major film for the first time, failed to draw a sizable paying audience.

The real shocker to me is that Paris Hilton's Cleavage House of Wax, the other major opener this weekend, only did $12M. In any case, I'm not worried for Hollywood. It's only a matter of time before Shrek 3.

RELATED: Sharon Waxman - NYTimes - Hollywood Worries as Decline Continues [reg. req., expires]
RELATED: Gary Snyder - Variety - Stop the madness: reports of B.O. death greatly exaggerated [expensive reg. req.]

UPDATE 5/12/2005: Craig puts this weekend's BO numbers in perspective.

Photo credit: David Appleby, 20th Century Fox, nytimes.com

About J. Ott

John Ott is a writer, filmmaker and futurist. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.