``W.'' distributor Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. is betting the movie can break a box-office drought for political films. None of the five released in the weeks ahead of the Nov. 4 election has brought in more than half of the $55.3 million in sales generated by Walt Disney Co.'s ``Beverly Hills Chihuahua,'' the current box-office champ, since Oct. 3.
``A lot of eyes are on `W.,''' said Gitesh Pandya, editor of New York-based Box Office Guru LLC. ``There's certainly a lot of interest in it from the right and the left.'' The film ``has a shot at finding box-office success,'' he said.
The movie, which opens tomorrow, may take in about $34 million in its first four weeks in U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Los Angeles-based Cantor Fitzgerald LP's HSX Research, which tracks film performance.
Controversial films help Lions Gate attract top talent, said Tom Ortenberg, who is responsible for movie-release strategy for the Santa Monica, California-based studio. ``Prestige pictures can be big moneymakers.''
And now the "sad" reality as presented by Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily:
There's been tremendous interest by the public in the box office fate of Oliver Stone's W. for its second weekend in release. Well, it ran out of steam. QED International/Lionsgate's Bush biopic sank 58% to No. 7 with a $5.3M weekend from 2,050 dates and new cume of $18.7M. The $30M negative cost film should end up with $23M domestic box office gross by the end of its North American run. That means, with a $25M P&A investment and Lionsgate's distribution fees, the film won't recoup.
In short, W. bombed bigtime. Perhaps the investors (suckers) in this flick should have paid attention to James Murray of NewBusters who accurately predicted the fate of this bomb way back in March:
These people never learn. Other than some diehard BDS sufferers, who in their right mind is going to pay to see an Oliver Stone depiction of George W. Bush? Fair or not, the president suffers from low poll numbers and we've heard for some time that America suffers from Bush fatigue, so it's curious why any studio would greenlight such a project and begin filming while he's still in office.
Hollywood apparently has learned nothing with the seemingly endless string of antiwar flicks bombing, so now we'll get the moonbat look at Bush. One can only imagine how Dick Cheney, Donaly Rumsfeld and the nefarious cabal of neocons will be portrayed.
Bush has been the most scrutinized president in modern times thanks to the explosion of the blogosphere, so it's not as if Stone would be able to shed any new light on his life or presidency. You can be sure, however, he will be taking creative license.
No surprise that W. would bomb. Here is one of the reviews on IMDB from someone who wasted his money on this disaster:
Just got home from "W" , the Oliver Stone piece of *beep* film.
I kid you not, THIS FILM HAD ABSOLUTELY NO PLOT ! ! ! ! ZERO ! ! !
NOTHING ! ! ! ! 1
It has scenes about the Iraq war and talk about it, but thats it...
It has scenes about the relationship with his father and talk about it, but thats it....
It has scenes about his election and talk about it, but thats it!!!!
NOTHING !!!
THE MOVIE WAS THE BIGGEST WASTE OF TIME. I saw 4 people walk out of it ! ! ! I wish I didn't sit through it. It ended so stupid too. Bush has a baseball hit to him and he's ready to catch it, but doesn't.
I assume it's an art film about politics and Bush, but the movie did not play write. It looked slapped together at the last second...
Wow..Ok, I'm done ranting, but dont see this *beep*
So it looks like the people who walk into the theaters to see W. are walking out later and asking themselves Y.
