Surrogates
Rate Movie[Total: 4 Average: 2.3]
- Directed By: Jonathan Mostow
- Written By: Michael Ferris, John Brancato
- Release Date: September 25, 2009
- Domestic Distributor: Disney (Touchstone)
- Cast: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike
Box Office Info:
| Budget: $80 million | Financed by: Disney |
|---|---|
| Domestic Box Office: $38,577,772 | Overseas Box Office: $83,867,000 |
The budget for Surrogates
was $80 million and it was financed by Disney. With the exception of the 5th Die Hard movie in 2013, this was the last big budget studio vehicle designed for Bruce Willis. The cranky actor had a long run of flops, which began with Bandits (2001), Hart’s War (2002), Tears of the Sun (2003), The Whole Ten Yards (2004), Hostage (2005), 16 Blocks (2006) and Perfect Stranger (2007) before finally scoring a hit with his established franchise Live Free or Die Hard (2007). Surrogates was his follow up feature and like most of his output over the decade, it bombed.
Surrogates would also mark the end of director Jonathan Mostow’s studio helming days, who previously was given the keys to the Terminator franchise for the third installment. And while we’re talking about declining careers, one week before Surrogates‘ release, Disney Studio Chairman Dick Cook was fired from his post, after not seeing eye to eye on running the studio the way the studio’s chief executive Bob Iger wanted and also because of the slate of films that were greenlit — including the expensive flop G-Force the month earlier.
Surrogates was dated for September 25 and bowed against the sci-fi dud Pandorum and the remake of Fame. The mouse house gave the pic an expensive marketing campaign and tracking was pointing to an opening in the mid to low 20s. Reviews were mixed to poor and it opened far below expectations with $14,902,692 — placing #2 for the weekend led by the holdover Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Audiences didn’t like what they saw and gave the movie an awful C cinemascore and it sank 51.4% in its second weekend to $7,241,054 and declined 41.1% in its third session to $4,268,314. Surrogates closed out its domestic run with only $38,577,772.
Overseas, the picture fared a bit better for Disney with an $83.8 million cume, but it would not be enough to offset the poor stateside numbers. With a worldwide total of $122.4 million, the mouse house would see returned about $67.3 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross — which would cover neither the global P&A spend or any of the budget.