RENDITION

Rendition

Rendition was co-financed by New Line and Level 1 Entertainment for $27.5 million and New Line distributed Rendition in the US. After a string of ‘war on terror’ films that flopped at the box office, including In The Valley Of Elah a month earlier, New Line’s marketing tried to be clear that film is not about the Iraq War, but tried to showcase the film as a thriller with an all-star cast. Rendition opened in a crowded marketplace that was saturated with adult targeting fare and mixed reviews and unappealing subject matter made this a difficult sell. Rendition opened against the horror pic 30 Days Of Night and competed for similar auds with Gone Baby Gone and Things We Lost In The Fire and holdover Michael Clayton. Rendition, played in 2,250 theaters and was dead on arrival with $4,060,012 — placing #9 for the weekend. The pic declined 41.6% to $2,372,487 in its second weekend and promptly lost most of its theater count. It was pulled out of release after its fourth week with a total of $9,736,045. New Line would see back about $5.3 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, leaving most of the P&A spend at a loss. Overseas, the film was sold to numerous distributors, which would limit New Line and Level 1’s exposure to the budget, but the film tanked in most markets, bringing its overseas total to $17.3 million. Entertainment Film Distributors, who handle New Line’s UK releases, saw the largest numbers with a mediocre $5,253,314. Rendition went straight to video in Russia. Domestic home video sales were only $6 million. 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 flops Shoot ‘Em Up, Mr. Woodcock, this pic and Martian Child a few weeks later.