SEPTEMBER DAWN

September Dawn

September Dawn was budgeted at $10.1 million and wealthy investor Patrick Imeson raised $8.8 million of the budget, with $6.7 million coming from Imeson and a partner. The film’s distribution costs were paid for by Imeson’s investment fund, Black Diamond Holdings (Black Diamond Pictures), which used rent-a-distributor Slowhand Cinema to handle the logistics of booking and marketing. P&A costs amounted to $10 million, though some estimates are north of that figure. September Dawn was surrounded by controversy upon release, with its premise about Mormons who committed a massacre and the free publicity from the Mormon community and Mitt Romney condemning the pic, did little to bolster audience interest. September Dawn opened in an ambitious 857 theaters, but tracking was poor and the reviews were worse and it was dead on arrival with $601,857 with a $702 per screen average. It placed #24 for the weekend led by holdover Superbad. Going into its second frame, September Dawn lost about half of its theater count and sank 78.6% to $129,000 and was pulled from release after three weeks with only $1,066,555. Major theater chains return only a small percentage of the ticket price to independent distributors (Regal Cinemas pays out only 34% of the ticket price to small distributors, for example) and about $375,000 was returned to cover the P&A spend and Imeson completely lost his investment on the film. September Dawn went straight to video in the few countries it found distribution.