By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--August 21, 2018
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I’m not even sure how this is possible.
That’s not in millions. It’s not even in thousands. It’s $126. One hundred twenty-six dollars. Some of you have more in your pocket than that.
And you sure as hell didn’t spend it last weekend to see Billionaire Boys Club.The ensemble crime-drama Billionaire Boys Club quietly opened Friday in 10 theaters scattered in select states across the U.S. The indie film earned an abysmal $126 for the day, following its release on premium VOD last month, according to those with access to theater grosses. Put another way, that’s a per location average of $12.60, which doesn’t even equal two tickets if going by the current average ticket price of $9.27. For the full weekend, Billionaire Boys Club could have trouble hitting $1,000 — by far the worst showing of a film starring Spacey. Titles that debut first on VOD aren’t generally big draws at the box office, but Billionaire Boys Club is faring particularly poorly. Ansel Elgort and Taron Egerton share top billing in Billionaire Boys Club, followed by Spacey. Emma Roberts, Jeremy Irvine, Cary Elwes, Judd Nelson and Billie Lourd also star in the movie, which is based on the real-life club of the same name that made headlines in Southern California in the 1980s. Spacey plays real-life Beverly Hills high-roller Ron Levin. The fate of the film was left in serious question after Spacey was accused last fall of sexual assault by a number of men in the U.S. and England. Netflix and MRC fired him from House of Cards, while Ridley Scott replaced Spacey in All the Money in the World.
Earlier this summer, distributor Vertical Entertainment said it would go ahead and release Billionaire Boys Club on VOD and in cinemas. In a statement at the time, Vertical said it was “neither an easy nor insensitive decision.”So the distributor goes ahead and releases the film, and all of 10 theaters decided to show it. On average, each of the 10 sells two tickets. And remember, most movies have at least three or four different showings per theater, which means that at least half the showings were to completely empty theaters. Now you might say, well sure, people saw Spacey’s name on the marquee and they avoided the film. But that assumes the theaters and the posters highlighted Spacey. Did they? Why would you when you could put reasonably well-known names like Judd Nelson and Emma Roberts up there instead? What seems to have happened here is that Vertical released the film as a path-of-least-resistance move, but neither distributor nor theaters had much interest in spending time or resources promoting it. It’s too bad, because there are some talented actors in the film who didn’t deserve to have their work completely ignored because of the personal behavior or one of their co-stars. I assume they all got paid, but as a performer you want your work seen. The film might be awful. It might be good. I have no idea. But not many people are going to ever know. I don’t even know how it’s possible to release a film theatrically and only make $126, but I guess it’s a measure of just how toxic Kevin Spacey has become. That’s a hell of a fall considering what a big star this guy was very recently. Entirely deserved too, but the collateral damage to everyone who worked with him is a shame.
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