BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE

Blood and Chocolate

Blood and Chocolate was financed by Lakeshore Entertainment for $15 million, who were looking for another werewolf success after their Underworld series took off. The pic would be one of the final productions set up at MGM as an independent company under chairman-CEO Alex Yemenidjian, since they were bought out by Sony in 2004. MGM distributed in the US with disastrous results. Blood and Chocolate opened in 1,200 theaters, without being screened for critics and was dead on arrival with an opening weekend of $2,074,300 — placing outside the top 10 at #16, when the idiotic spoof Epic Movie and Smokin’ Aces led the weekend. Audiences gave Blood and Chocolate a toxic C cinemascore and the film sank 70.2% in its second weekend to $605,157 when Sony released the horror film The Messengers. Blood And Chocolate lost most of its theater count after its second week and it closed with just $3,526,847. MGM would see back about $1.9 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which wouldn’t even cover the cost of striking release prints or any advertising. Blood and Chocolate posted a horrible $2.7 million overseas across multiple distributors and went straight to video in France. Domestic home video sales eclipsed the box office take with $8.2 million.