SON OF THE MASK

Son Of The Mask

New Line offered up this belated sequel 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 $84 million with Radar Pictures. New Line’s exposure to the budget was around $20 million after strong pre-sales to overseas distributors covered much of the budget. The sequel 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 booked in 2,966 theaters and critics savaged the movie and it was competing for family auds against Because of Winn-Dixie. It pulled in a weak $7,511,675 for the weekend and $9,100,115 over the 4-day frame — placing #4 at the box office led by holdover Hitch and new releases Constantine and Winn-Dixie. The film declined 49.1% in its second frame to $3,822,241 and saw a steep 69.8% third weekend decline to $1,153,357 when the Vin Diesel family pic The Pacifier opened. Son of the Mask closed its run with only $17,018,422 leaving New Line with about $9.3 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would not even cover half of their P&A costs and none of the budget they were still exposed to. Overseas, the numerous distributors who overpaid for the film 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 territories the film 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.