Son Of The Mask

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  • Directed By: Lawrence Guterman
  • Written By: Lance Khazei
  • Release Date: February 18, 2005
  • Domestic Distributor: New Line
  • Cast: Jamie Kennedy, Alan Cumming, Liam Falconer

Box Office Info:
Budget: $93 million Financed by: New Line; Radar Pictures
Domestic Box Office: $17,018,422 Overseas Box Office: $40,534,219

son of the mask movie
New Line offered up this belated sequel to The Mask (1994) nobody asked for and it would be the second time New Line tried to franchise a Jim Carrey movie without Jim Carrey — the first being Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.  New Line financed the expensive Son Of The Mask for $93 million with Radar Pictures.  New Line’s exposure to the budget was reported by the studio at $20 million after strong pre-sales to overseas distributors, which covered most of the budget.

Son Of The Mask was originally going to have a summer 2004 release, but was pushed back to October 15, 2004 and moved again to February 18, 2005 over the four-day Presidents’ Day weekend.  Son Of The Mask was savaged by critics and the movie had little buzz going into release.  The marketing material was an unholy mix of Baby Geniuses and Looney Tunes, which turned off older fans of the original picture and the comics and looked radioactive to most of the moviegoing public.

It bowed against Constantine and Because of Winn-Dixie, which was also competing for family auds.  Son Of The Mask pulled in a disastrous $7,511,675 for the weekend and $9,100,115 over the 4-day frame — placing #4 at the box office led by the holdover Hitch.  The picture declined 49.1% in its second frame to $3,822,241 and sank 69.8% in its third session to $1,153,357 when the Vin Diesel family pic The Pacifier opened.  Son of the Mask closed its domestic run with only $17,018,422.  New Line would see returned about $9.3 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would not even cover 1/3 of their P&A costs and none of the budget they were still exposed to.

Overseas, the numerous distributors who overpaid for the movie saw Son of the Mask post mostly weak numbers.  Entertainment distributed in the UK where it pulled in a soft $6.1 million and the film did ok in Japan with $12.2 million, but in most markets the movie flopped and its overseas cume was $40,534,219.

After Son Of The Mask bombed, New Line production head Toby Emmerich said he would go forward with sequels only if original stars are involved, which at the time New Line was trying to push Elf 2 into production.

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  1. “Son of the Mask” is actually one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a great film by any means. But it was a lot better than I expected it to be when I saw it on TBS a few years ago. Certainly better than its current ratings of 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, 20/100 on Metacritic, and 2.2/10 on IMDb would indicate.

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