Heist

  • heist 2001 box office
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  • Directed By: David Mamet
  • Written By: David Mamet
  • Release Date: November 9, 2001
  • Domestic Distributor: Warner Bros
  • Cast: Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Sam Rockwell
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Box Office Info:
Budget: $28 million Financed by: Franchise Pictures; Intertainment
Domestic Gross: $23,510,841 Overseas Gross: $4,999,811


Heist was financed by Franchise Pictures and the German based Intertainment.  Intertainment sued Franchise in December 2000 for fraudulently inflating the budgets for their movies, so that Intertainment ended up shouldering more than the 47% of the production costs they contractually agreed to cover for a huge slate of Franchise pics.  Franchise head Elie Samaha would make phony deferments called “approved overages” that were made up charges — on this picture, he approved $9.97 million in overages.  With the fake overages, Franchise reported the budget to Intertainment as $38 million, but the actual price of the film was revealed to be $28 million.

Intertainment successfully sued Franchise and Samaha for $77 million and wiped out the scummy company in 2004.  Before that judgement was handed down to Franchise, Morgan Creek also sued the company, as they had acquired domestic distribution rights in 1998 for eight Franchise films — “The Whole Nine Yards (Franchise’s only hit movie),” “Battlefield Earth,” “Art of War,” Get Carter,” “The Pledge,” “3000 Miles to Graceland,” Angel Eyes” and “Heist.”  Along with a distribution fee, Morgan Creek would receive 15% of the film’s profits and they would have a right of first refusal on distributing the movies.  Franchise never paid out any money for “The Whole Nine Yards” and they never offered Morgan Creek any other additional films to accept or pass on.

Warner Bros handled domestic distribution for most of Franchise’s output and first dated Heist for September 7, but then bumped it to October 26 and then to October 19 and finally settled on November 9.  It opened against Shallow Hal and the wide expansion of Life As A House and was writer/director David Mamet’s first wide release movie.  Heist was booked into 1,891 theaters and pulled in $7,823,521 — placing #5 for the weekend led by the holdover Monsters, Inc.  The picture declined 40.2% the following weekend to $4,682,249 and it had a modest 33.5% third frame drop to $3,113,033.  Heist then sank 62% in its fourth weekend to $1,182,497 and quickly closed its domestic run with $23,510,841.  Warner Bros would see returned about $12.9 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would not cover their P&A expenses.

The film saw a low key release overseas, where it cumed $4.9 million across numerous distributors.

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