HANNIBAL RISING

Hannibal Rising

The $75 million budgeted Hannibal Rising was financed by Quinta Communications, Ingenious Film Partners and Zephyr Films. Back in May 2005 at the Cannes Film Festival, fresh from their divorce from Disney, the Weinsteins took the pre-sale US rights to this film and also The Last Legion, without even officially launching The Weinstein Company. Co-financier of those films Tarak Ben Ammar, who runs Quinta Communications, decided he would also heavily invest in the formation of The Weinstein Company after the Weinsteins committed to distribute the films. The Weinstein Company released the film in the US with their distribution partner MGM and opened Hannibal Rising in 3,003 theaters, which was tracking for around a $20 million opening. Reviews were rotten and it came in below expectations with $13,051,650 — placing #2 behind new opener Norbit. Hannibal Rising showed terrible legs at the box office, declining 58.5% in its second frame to $5,418,106 and 68.5% in its third weekend to $1,706,165. The prequel closed its run with a weak $27,670,986 leaving The Weinstein Company with about $15.1 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would not cover the P&A costs. After $23 million in home video sales (less after resellers take their cut and manufacturing costs), TWC would be in decent shape, but with the soft numbers, very little would flow back to the financiers. Overseas, Hannibal Rising pulled in mediocre to poor numbers, posting $54.4 million across numerous distributors, which is less than half of previous installment Red Dragon’s $116 million overseas cume. More theatrical entries were planned by producer Dino De Laurentiis, but scrapped after the poor worldwide box office receipts and a more successful television series was launched in 2013.