EVOLUTION

Evolution

Evolution was budgeted at $80 million and the film was originally going to be financed by only DreamWorks, but in late 2000 the project became packaged with two other movies as a co-financing and foreign distribution arrangement with Sony. A few weeks before Almost Famous was to open in 2000, DreamWorks became nervous about the budget overages, which grew to over $60 million and to mitigate their risk they courted Sony to buy the overseas rights. Sony cut DreamWorks a $100 million check and $35 million would go to the foreign rights for Almost Famous, $55 million would go to Evolution and $15 would go to An Everlasting Piece.

DreamWorks handled domestic distribution and first dated the pic for July 13 and then bumped it up to June 8, where it would open against Swordfish. Evolution received mixed to poor reviews and came in below expectations with $13,408,351 — placing #4 for the weekend led by Swordfish and DreamWork’s hit Shrek in its fourth frame. Evolution had poor legs and declined 50.7% to $6,615,219 the following weekend and 50.3% in its third frame to $3,287,925. It closed its domestic run with a very disappointing $38,345,494. DreamWorks would see returned about $21 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would not cover their P&A expenses or any of their exposure to the budget. DreamWorks had two major wipeouts in 2001 — Evolution and The Last Castle.

The film fared a bit better overseas for Sony, but it pulled in mostly soft numbers for a film of this expense in most markets. The offshore cume stalled at $60 million.