BABYLON A.D.

Babylon A.D.

Fox and StudioCanal co-financed Babylon A.D. for originally $60 million, but a mess of a production and studio interference saw the budget balloon to $70 million. Production halted for two weeks to “sort things out” according to Producer Ilan Goldman, which added over $1 million in expenses. Director Mathieu Kassovitz disowned Babylon A.D. and publicly railed against the film in the days leading to its release, describing the finished product as “pure violence and stupidity.” Despite the bad publicity, Fox released the film without screenings for critics and put the film out in 3,390 theaters over the slow Labor Day frame to $9,484,627 — placing #2 behind Tropic Thunder in its third weekend. Audiences gave Babylon A.D. a toxic D+ cinemascore and it declined 55.9% in its second frame to $4,180,570 and fell 55.4% in its third frame to $1,864,585. Babylon A.D. ended its run with $22,532,572 leaving Fox with about $12.3 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would leave around half of the P&A costs in the red. Overseas, StudioCanal distributed in France, which posted the strongest numbers with a decent $8 million and the film pulled in mediocre to poor numbers in most territories to a $49.5 million total, across numerous distributors. A documentary about the troubled shoot and studio tinkering titled ‘Fucking Kassovitz‘ (actual title) was for some reason not included by FOX or StudioCanal on their DVD/Blu-ray releases as an extra. Recorded domestic home video sales were a decent $25.4 million (less after resellers take their cut and manufacturing costs).