Pride And Glory
Rate Movie[Total: 3 Average: 2.7]
- Directed By: Gavin O’Connor
- Written By: Joe Carnahan, Gavin O’Connor
- Release Date: October 24, 2008
- Domestic Distributor: Warner Bros
- Cast: Colin Farrell, Edward Norton, Jon Voight
Box Office Info:
| Budget: $30 million | Financed by: New Line |
|---|---|
| Domestic Box Office: $15,740,721 | Overseas Box Office: $15,407,607 |
Originally titled Manhattan North, the project was originally set up at the low budget specialty shingle Fine Line for an inexpensive $10 million in 1999. As the estimated production costs began to escalate, Pride And Glory moved over to New Line, with Hugh Jackman and Mark Wahlberg in talks to star. After the September 11th attacks, a project about corrupt NY cops was not a priority for the studio and it was put into turnaround. Eventually the project did materialize at New Line and filming finished in 2006 with a budget of $30 million — then things then went sour when the picture was in post-production.
New Line and director Gavin O’Connor sparred over multiple edits of the film and a fall 2007 release date was penciled in. At Cannes in May 2007, another NY police drama premiered, We Own The Night and Sony took distribution rights and committed big a P&A spend for a fall 2007 release. New Line got cold feet and pushed Pride And Glory back until March 2008. New Line then decided not to release the movie due to pressure from parent company Warner Bros about delivering a hit after the disappointing returns on The Golden Compass and the commercial prospects for Pride And Glory looked poor.
Gavin O’Connor blamed New Line chairman Bob Shaye for not having faith in the film and even tried to shop the pic around to different distributors, but the asking price was the entire budget and every studio passed. While the release was in limbo, O’Connor had already set up his next project Warrior at New Line, but refused to work with them after the distribution issues on Pride And Glory and moved that over to Lionsgate.
Pride And Glory was inherited by Warner Bros and its likelihood of seeing a theatrical release was grim, until Sue Kroll became the worldwide marketing chief in January 2008 at WB and she pushed for its release. It was finally dated for October 24th, 2008 as counter-programming to High School Musical 3: Senior Year and Saw V. Reviews were mixed leaning negative and it pulled in a disappointing $6,262,396 — placing #5 for the weekend led by High School Musical 3. Pride and Glory fell 46.3% in its second frame to $3,363,452 and then sank 61.5% in frame three to $1,293,389. The domestic run closed with only $15,740,721. Warner Bros would see back about $8.6 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, far below the P&A spend.
The film was sold off to numerous distributors overseas, which would limit Warner’s exposure to the budget. The overseas gross was a meager $15.4 million, with $3.6 million from Spain as the strongest numbers.