KICKIN’ IT OLD SKOOL

Kickin' It Old Skool

Kickin’ It Old Skool was financed for an estimated $25 million by the Yari Film Group, which would be one of the many decisions that led to the company’s bankruptcy in 2008 and they partnered with Syndicate Films Intl. to pre-sell international rights. Comedies usually don’t travel well overseas and this one only sold to a few distributors, which would leave Yari’s exposure to the budget relatively high. The struggling Yari Film Group combined its distribution arm with rent-a-distributor Freestyle Releasing, to help with booking, shipping and logistics and Kickin’ It Old Skool was the first film under this arrangement. The pic opened on April 27 which was a dumping ground weekend in 2007 as Spider-Man 3 was opening the following weekend and would take most of the box office to itself. Kickin’ It Old Skool opened against three other duds left to die by their studios — The Invisible, Next and The Condemned. Yari/Freestyle booked the film in 1,816 theaters to a terrible $2,484,624 — placing outside of the top 10 at #12 when holdover Disturbia led the weekend. The Jamie Kennedy staring film sank a huge 67.4% in its second frame to $810,373 and promptly lost most of its theater count. It ended its theatrical run with just $4,502,604. Major chains don’t pay out the usual 55% to smaller distributors (Regal Cinemas pays out only 34% for example) so Yari/Freestyle saw back less than $2 million from the film’s theatrical run, which would not even cover the cost of striking film prints for theaters or any marketing and production costs. Overseas, the film saw a release only in Russia with just $185,630 and in Iceland with $3,874. It found release in only a few markets that sent it straight to video or television. Domestic DVD sales were an awful $2.5 million and this marks the last big screen vehicle for Jamie Kennedy.