Welcome To Mooseport
| Budget: $30 million | Financed by: FOX; Medieastream |
|---|---|
| Domestic Gross: $14,470,947 | Domestic Distributor: FOX |
| Overseas Gross: $144,152 | Directed by: Donald Petrie |
Starring: Ray Romano Gene Hackman |
Produced by: Tom Schulman |
Intermedia Films was set to finance Welcome To Mooseport, but ended up only producing the film and FOX financed Mooseport for an estimated $30 million, with some capital from the German tax shelter fund Medieastream. After Welcome To Mooseport flopped, actor Ray Romano has not had another studio budgeted film packaged around his name and this disposable comedy would have disappeared into the ether if it wasn’t Gene Hackman’s final movie before his retirement.
FOX originally dated the pic for February 13, then shifted it to February 29 and finally settled on February 20. FOX held sneak previews at 800 locations on the 15th to help spread word of mouth. Welcome To Mooseport received poor reviews and bowed against Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Eurotrip and the delayed Against The Ropes. There was much speculation if the movie would launch a big screen career for Ray Romano, but that was immediately ended when it opened with a poor $6,775,132 — placing #4 for the weekend led by the holdover comedy 50 First Dates. Audiences gave the film a terrible C+ cinemascore and Mooseport fell 51.6% in its second weekend to $3,279,764 and followed that with a 69.4% plunge to $1,003,887 and the film was quickly out of theaters with $14,470,947. FOX would see back about $7.9 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, far less than their P&A expenses and the budget would be all red. For domestic television sales, FOX packaged their garbage releases Catch That Kid, Welcome To Mooseport and From Justin To Kelly together to ABC Family for $2 million, as the films had no demand in the cable marketplace on their own.
FOX dumped the movie straight to video in almost every overseas market and it received a token theatrical release in Australia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain to all of $144,152.