LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA

Love In The Time of Cholera

Scott Steindorff’s Stone Village Pictures paid Gabriel García Márquez more than $1 million for the rights to his 1985 novel Love In The Time of Cholera, plus a production bonus which would see the author receive a $3 million pay day — at least someone made money on this adaptation. Stone Village financed the pic for $45 million and Summit handled international pre-sales and it sold well worldwide. Stone Village paid for the marketing expenses in the US and a fee to New Line for use of its distribution resources. Love In The Time of Cholera received mixed to poor reviews, sidestepped a platform release and opened in 852 theaters to a soft $1,924,860 and a not very promising $2,259 per screen average. It placed #10 for the weekend led by Beowulf and came in behind No Country For Old Men in its second frame (also starring Javier Bardem) which was only in 148 theaters. Love In The Time of Cholera had weak legs and declined 49.8% in its second weekend to $966,983 and quickly closed with only $4,607,608. Stone Village would see back about $2.5 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, leaving most of their P&A costs in the red, plus a fee to New Line. The film posted a decent enough $5.4 million in Italy, which was the strongest territory and FOX released the film in Mexico to a respectable $4.2 million, but the numbers were soft to poor in most countries and the overseas total was $26.7 million across numerous distributors.