Isn't She Great
Rate Movie[Total: 14 Average: 1.7]
- Directed By: Andrew Bergman
- Written By: Paul Rudnick
- Release Date: January 28, 2000
- Domestic Distributor: Universal
- Cast: Bette Midler, Nathan Lane, Stockard Channing, John Cleese
Box Office Info:
| Budget: $36 million | Financed by: Mutual Film Company; BBC; Tele München; Toho |
|---|---|
| Domestic Box Office: $2,962,465 | Overseas Box Office: $40,831 |
The budget for Isn’t She Great was $36 million and the backing was put together by the Mutual Film Company, which had three foreign investors that would also distribute Mutual’s products — BBC (U.K.), Tele München (Germany) and Toho (Japan).
Mutual also handled sales to distributors in other markets. Universal was onboard for domestic distribution. As this Bette Midler vehicle about the life of Jacqueline Susann was in active development, Hollywood had a brief flirtation with resurrecting Susann and her work. FOX was attempting to move forward with a remake of Valley Of The Dolls (which never materialized) and the USA network fast tracked a TV movie Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story.
Universal originally planned on a release in 1999, but the picture was pushed into the January dumping ground on January 28, trying to court older femme auds not interested in the Super Bowl. Isn’t She Great was savaged by critics and mostly proclaimed a disaster. It opened against the stinker Eye of the Beholder and Universal booked it into only 750 theaters, where it was dead on arrival with $1,368,705 — placing #17 for the slowest weekend in three years led by Eye Of The Beholder. Isn’t She Great sank 52.3% to $652,445 the following weekend and promptly lost most of its theater count. It was pulled from release after only four weeks with an awful $2,962,465.
The recorded offshore cume was just $40,831 and it was dumped straight to video in most overseas markets. Isn’t She Great was the last studio vehicle built around Bette Midler, who had been offscreen since the bomb That Old Feeling (1997). She was apart of the ensemble cast of the poorly performing Drowning Mona released just one month later.