MARTIAN CHILD

Martian Child

New Line financed Martian Child for $27 million and the picture was completed in 2005 and New Line bounced the release date around, before scheduling last minute reshoots by director Jerry Zucker. New Line had a generally poor year in 2007 and inexplicably fired their long term marketing chief Russell Schwartz in August — two weeks after New Line’s biggest hit in years Hairspray. New Line’s fall slate was dire with box office bombs Rendition, Mr. Woodcock and Shoot ‘Em Up and positioned Martian Child to open against Bee Movie and American Gangster. With little buzz, the PG rated pic tanked with an opening weekend of $3,376,669 in 2,020 theaters — placing #7 for the weekend. Martian Child declined 45.4% in its second weekend to $1,843,767 and quickly closed with a poor $7,500,310. New Line would see back about $4.1 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would leave most of their prints and advertising costs at a loss and their budget in the red. Overseas, the film posted a small $1.8 million across numerous distributors and went straight to video in Russia, Italy and most smaller territories. Domestic home video sales came to $7.7 million (less after resellers take their cut and manufacturing costs).