NEXT

Next

Next was financed by Revolution Studios and in 2005, before production began, Revolution head Joe Roth temporarily put the project on hold because the original $85 million budget gave him second thoughts on the project. Revolution just saw their sequel XXX: State Of The Union crash and burn at the box office and Joe Roth wanted a partner to share the financial risk. IEG Virtual Studios boarded the project to sell the international rights, which would partially cover Revolution’s exposure to the expensive budget, which came in at $78.1 million (actual budget was listed after Revolution was put up for sale and their film library budgets were posted). Next was to be distributed by Sony who handled Revolution’s productions, but Sony dropped the film in early 2007. Sony would also not renew their distribution contract with Revolution and Joe Roth closed down his film producing division at the end of 2007. Paramount picked up US rights and dumped the film in 2,725 theaters the week before Spider-Man 3 opened, which would suck the air out of the box office the following weekend. Other studios also unloaded their garbage during the quiet weekend and Next was competing for scraps with The Invisible, The Condemned and Kickin’ It Old Skool. Even with modest tracking around $10 million, Next was expected to win the weekend, but pulled in a weak $7,133,049 posting one of Nic Cage’s softest openings at the box office. It placed #3 for the weekend, led by Paramount’s release of Dreamworks’ Disturbia in frame 3. Next saw a steep decline of 59.5% to $2,892,335 in its second weekend and closed its US run with just $18,211,013. Paramount would see returned about $10.1 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would not cover even half of the ad spend. The film did pull in a respectable enough $19 million on home video (less after resellers take their cut and manufacturing costs) which would most likely leave Paramount near a break even point on the title, but little, if any revenue would flow back to Revolution. Overseas, the film pulled in mediocre to poor numbers across numerous distributors and grossed $57.8 million. Spain posted the strongest gross with a respectable $7.1 million and Paramount distributed in Australia to a disastrous $593,952. Paramount also distributed in director Lee Tamahori’s home country New Zealand to just $102,873. Entertainment distributed in the UK and the film opened at #1 with $1,587,801 but closed with a soft $4,918,056.