Credit: The Bubble
Factory
ABC News’ David
Wright and Cole Kazdin report:
Nothing wraps up
summer quite like your token monster movie, but “Creature,” which opened last
week, not only failed to deliver, it flopped. Big time.
The film about a
half-man, half-alligator from the deep who lets out horrible, guttural
screeching sounds and picks off a group of young people one-by-one, had one of
the worst box office openings ever. Of 1,507 screens for “Creature,” its total
box office revenue was just $331,000.
“You’re looking at
$220 per screen, per theater, that’s a terrible, terrible opening,” said Matt
Atchity of RottenTomatoes.com. “That roughly comes to six people per theater
and that’s being generous. Laws of averages, you’re seeing 10 to 20 go to one
and you’re seeing empty theaters.”
Sid Scheinberg, the
producer of “Creature,” is actually the godfather of blockbuster hits. During
his 20 years at the helm of Universal Studios, he “discovered” Steven
Spielberg, supervised “Jaws” and had a heavy hand in “Jurassic Park,” just to
name a few.
“In fact, Sid is one
of the guys responsible for the modern strategy for wide-releases,” Atchity
said. “Until 1977, movies were released in a different strategy than we see now
— what’s called ‘road shows,’ we’d see it in a few markets, and as buzz built
up, they’d go nationwide.”
In “Creature’s”
defense, this wasn’t the weekend they expected. A few months ago, no other big
movie wanted to open on 9/11 weekend, and there was the NFL strike, so the
field looked wide open. But then “Contagion” — a thriller about a deadly
disease outbreak — moved up its release date and the NFL strike was resolved.
“Creature” wasn’t alone — several films opened badly that weekend.
Buzz about
“Creature” zipped around the Internet after its release , but for all
the wrong reasons. As we wrapped up our interview with Sid Scheinberg’s
son and partner Jonathan Scheinberg, who marketed and distributed the
movie, Sid burst into the room to tell us that “Creature” had suddenly
shot up on IMBD’s MOVIEmeter – a ranking system for the most and least
popular movies.
People were talking
about it because it was a dud, but Jonathan turned that into a positive.
“Now our awareness
is higher than a lot of openings that are happening this weekend,” he said.
Unfortunately, the
buzz is building right as theater owners are pulling the film for other
options.
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