This past weekend, a little animated film got a wide release (2160 theaters) and quietly went about setting a brand new all time box office record! The only problem for Delgo is that the record is for the LOWEST amount of money made on an opening weekend with a release on over 2000 screens.
How much did Delgo make? Well let’s put this into perspective. Punisher: War Zone was considered a cataclysmic bomb when it only managed to make $4.2 million on its opening weekend. Delgo earned… are you ready for this… $0.5 million. Yes, it made roughly the same amount that the new movie “Doubt” made, but Doubt was only showing on 15 screens… not 2160 screens.
What is Delgo? Yahoo puts it like this:
It’s the animated movie voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt, Val Kilmer, Kelly Ripa, Burt Reynolds and the late Anne Bancroft. The film follows two star-crossed lovers and an evil queen in a fantastical, reptilian world.
Well, I’ll tell you what Delgo isn’t. A movie getting a sequel.
To put this more into perspective, the math of these numbers equals out to less than 2 people being in the theater for each screening this past weekend. OUCH!
There is nothing good at box office. That why did good at box office.
@ kitty cats are funny!
There nothing wrong to going to a movie by yourself I do it all the time, granted I wouldn’t choose Delgo as such movie.
about time for a reboot.
John
I get your math now. Props to your assessment. Your madness is spot on! LOL
i dont really think johns ever been wrong about anything so far… so when i think he has a stat or a number wrong i just keep it to myself until someone points it out so i can just agree with them….
…
Be gone Cutthroat Island, you have lost the crown.
Hey Godfather,
There isn’t anything wrong with the math dude. I never said it was less than 2 people per theater… I said it was less than 2 people per screening.
Each theater played the movie around 9-11 times over the weekend.
WOW what a record!!!
I agree with what so many posters have said – I didn’t even know this movie existed until I read this post!
Perhaps this wouldn’t have been such a colossal bomb if they had spent some dollars advertising the hell out of this movie. There have probably been worse movies that have done better at the box office.
Up until last week, I had only heard the title, but knew nothing about the movie. Whoever was in charge of this advertising campaign should be given a Razzie, or better yet, beaten with it.
But John, I have a quirk with your math. You stated that the money made translates into 2 people per movie theatre for the take, but your math is off, unless someone is paying $115.74 for a single ticket. $500 000/2160 theatres = $231.48 per theatre. At $13 a ticket, that would mean 18 people showed up per theatre (rounded up. I hate counting parts of people! LOL). Pretty shitty indeed.
@Orren and others
My question is…who are these people going to see this movie ALONE. One ticket sold on friday….really? What sad individual went to see this alone. Isn’t this a kids movie?
I only saw a preview for it once. It was on some talk show for some reason. I was just flipping channels and saw it. First thing that came to mind was the art direction looked awful.
When nodody knows you’re around, nobody knows you’re around. I seen many comments regarding Kelly Rippa not mentioning the film (might be a reason?) but what’s more sad news is…if I’m not mistaken, this film marks th last film credit for the late Anne Bancroft.
The film, I understand, went through many writers, and most studios wouldn’t go near it (might there be a reason?) for distribution. Yes, it’s a downer that the film bombed this badly. Hopefully it’ll make some change on DVD. Hopefully those behind the film production will pick themselves up by the bootstraps and try again with either a better project or co-produce a slew of indie low budget live action films.
“what!?”
No, I’m serious. I never heard of this film before, it is the first time I heard about how the pic was made. But they had a drive. I’ll give ’em that. If I were them and this event stared me in the face, and I still wanted to make movies? I’d regroup, rethink and invest in smaller pictures, don’t open them big…and stay as producer only.
See, Slushie? ot every commenter on the site bashes things for the sake of bashing. Some of us are positive thinkers and do admire the guts of those willing to do this risk, even if the end product and result was less than favorable. But that also doesn’t mean we should kiss anyone’s rear end either!
I work at a movie theater, at this theater there was one ticket sold on Friday. Two tickets on Saturday but because the film was so bad they asked for refunds. Sunday and beyond there has been Zero Admissions….so bad we don’t even start the movie.
I find it so funny how everyone here is bashing the hell out of the movie, despit the fact that not only have they not seen it, they didn’t even know before now that it existed.
The comments section of this stie is quickly getting close to rivaling imdb and AICN for people that just want to bash things for the sake of bashing things.
i only saw 1 commercial for it last week, but my first (and only) thought was:
wtf ?.
haha, their failure makes me laugh. I’m happy now.
But if they at least advertised it, it MIGHT have got some more people to go and maybe make some money or break even… or lose less.
Anything would have been better than making 0.5m
wait-waste u get the point!
Atleast they didn’t wait a ton of money on advertising like TitanAE did back in 2000.
First of all, what the hell is this movie about? I didn’t see any advertising or any trailer for this movie. It’s probably why this movie flopped. Hell, Punisher War Zone had tv spots.
If it was a bad movie, I’d feel bad about the animators regardless. They probably started hating it years ago when they realized the director was more involved in seeing his vision come to life than he was on writing a good script. But bomb or not, they get paid anyway.
A producer knows a good product when s/he sees it. This was obviously pushed through and pulverized. Gotta give the investors something. Even a total failure is better than a film that is DOA.
“Then again they should’a known that when you hire the Prinze for your movie…………….”
You’re right, because Scooby-Doo and I Know What You Did Last Summer are completely unheard of movies that nobody has ever heard of before…
please, pick a better argument. That one was just pathetic.
Maybe it’s the fact that I have played video games with better in gameplay animation.
I can’t stop friggin laughing after reading that article. God knows I feel bad for the animators who spent a crapload of their time making this movie but Dear God Where Was The Advertising? Not that I would have gone to see this anyway but i’ve never even heard of the damn thing until right now. Then again they should’a known that when you hire the Prinze for your movie…………….
lmao, I’d laugh SO HARD if they actually do that.
On the bright side, at least they’re finally getting some publicity. And they can officially put the words “record-breaking” on the DVD release.
@ rodney
lol
and ditto what Matt(gigan300) said….
I never even heard about the movie before now.
From what I’ve heard, its actually a decent movie, but up until this past weekend, I had never even heard of this movie.
Worst…marketing…ever.
Whoever did the marketing should reimburse the film and pay them extra. It was ridiculous. The only reason I had any clue what it was was because I was watching trailers onyahoo and it was there. Ditto on Padthai about Kelly Rippa, but maybe she is afraid to do that anymore after that horrible movie, Fly Me To The Moon which she did talk up.
Maybe if Delgo didn’t make all their male characters have heads that look like shaved nutsacs, it might have done better…
Then again, after seeing the trailer, probably not.
Dennis
yeah they could’ve done a better job with the advertising.
For example, Kelly Ripa is in this movie and I didn’t even hear her talk about it on her talk show. WTF? Couldn’t she even just mention it?
Punisher War Zone was the bigger bomb of the two, Hollywood is 0-3 for the Punisher story. I saw much more advertising for Punisher than Delgo, and Punisher had more brand name and recognition than Delgo did.
Was this movie even advertised? I didn’t even know about it until I read this article.
Not saying the movie is any good (cause I haven’t seen it) but it REALLY could have done with a better marketing campaign behind it. It looks straight to video (not even dvd) and nothing even catches your eye when looking at the poster!!
I wouldn’t give up the day job but I’d certainly re-evaluate a few things!
Shame.
I didn’t even know this movie existed until I went to see the day the earth stood still – I saw it in the movie theater lobby on a poster.
This movie took years to make and was a lifelong dream of the creator/writer. To see it fail like this is sad, here is a guy that had a dream and he was able to live that dream only to find out he sucks.
THAT’S SO FUNNY!
I JUST CAN’T GET ENOUGH CGI FILMS!!!!!!!!!!
But apparently, the rest of the world can, and has. It really is a movie with an uninspired visual look, and there’s nothing about it that makes me want to see it.
I feel sorry for Delgo. When we finally saw a commercial for it, it looked kinda fun, with a Don Bluth style fantasy feel. With it’s stupid logo, I thought it was some Bible cartoon or something, since that’s what it looked like. (Should’ve noticed they were like lizard people… )
Might have had something to do with the fact that until now I had never even HEARD of this movie.
And I write for this site!!
I can feel the ouch. I’m more surprised that so many screens picked it up after the studio did nothing to market it.
LMAO
That is some serious sadness. The movie got bad reviews as well. Someone is now in some serious debt.