THE LAST LEGION

The Last Legion

This $67 million dud was financed by Quinta Communications, Ingenious Film Partners and Zephyr Films. Back in May 2005 at the Cannes Film Festival the Weinsteins took the pre-sale US rights to this film and also what would be retitled Hannibal Rising without even officially launching The Weinstein Company yet. Co-financier of those films Tarak Ben Ammar, who runs Quinta Communications, decided he would also heavily invest in the formation of The Weinstein Company after the Weinsteins committed to distribute the films. The Last Legion was originally scheduled for an October 2006 release and then was delayed numerous times, before they were contractually forced to release the pic in at least 1,500 theaters by the end of August. The Last Legion was eventually dumped by the Weinstein Company with a minimal P&A spend, atrocious and cheap looking marketing material and they did not screen it for critics. It was booked into 2,002 theaters and cumed a terrible $2,746,312 opening weekend — placing #12 for the weekend led by new opener Superbad. The film sank 67.2% second weekend to $901,294 and promptly lost most of its theater count and ended its run with $5,933,494. Overseas, the film did not fare much better. Sword and Sandal epics usually play well in Russia and the film did open at #1 with a soft $1,639,149, but quickly left theaters with just $3.4 million. The film pulled in an ok $5.6 million from Spain, but tanked in every other market, bringing its overseas run to $19.3 million across numerous distributors.