OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

Our Brand Is Crisis

• 
  Rate Movie

  [Total: 6 Average: 2.3]
  Genre(s): Comedy | Drama

• Directed By: David Gordon Green
• Written By: Peter Straughan
• Release Date: October 30, 2015
• Domestic Distributor: Warner Bros
• Cast: Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Scoot McNairy
• 

---

Box Office Info:

Budget: $28 million	Financed by: Warner Bros; Participant Media; RatPac-Dune
Domestic Box Office: $7,002,261	Overseas Box Office: $1,590,171

Warner Bros picked up the feature remake rights to Our Brand Is Crisis back in April 2007, one year after the documentary of the same name bowed.  The budget for Our Brand Is Crisis was $28 million and WB co-financed this Sandra Bullock vehicle with Participant Media and RatPac-Dune.  Participant, which is run by Ebay founder Jeff Skoll, formed his production and financing shingle in 2004 to focus on activism and social issues through film.

WB dated the picture for October 30, as a possible awards contender.  Our Brand Is Crisis premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September and despite positive notices for Bullock’s performance, it landed mixed reviews and much indifference.  For a film with limited commercial appeal and a deadly release date dumped on the slow Halloween weekend, Warner Bros gave Our Brand Is Crisis a solid marketing push, with $17.4 million worth of TV spots (data from iSpotTV) and a domestic P&A spend that is at the minimum, the cost of its budget.

It opened against Burnt and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse and was tracking for a very soft $6 million opening weekend.  The market was also saturated with adult fare like Bridge Of Spies, The Martian, Sicario and the underperforming Steve Jobs.  Our Brand Is Crisis came in below its already low expectations with a miserable $3,238,433 — placing #8 for the weekend led by The Martian.  The few that showed up opening day also gave Our Brand Is Crisis a terrible C+ cinemascore and it sank 56% the following weekend to $1,424,033 and promptly lost most of its theater count.  The domestic run closed with just $7,002,261.  WB would see returned about $3.8 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, leaving most of the P&A expenses in the red and the budget untouched.

After the dismal domestic numbers, Warner Bros didn’t do much in the way of investing in an expensive overseas rollout.  Taiwan posted the bulk of its $1.5M offshore gross with $1,007,501.  A-list star vehicles don’t misfire much worse than this at the box office.