DECEPTION

Deception

This Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor staring turkey was put in turnaround at FOX and Media Rights Capital came aboard as financier. Costing $25 million, Summit handled foreign sales and FOX originally agreed to distribute only in Australia. Jackman, who was prepping the Baz Luhrmann pic Australia (for release in November 2008) and a Wolverine spin-off for FOX, used his leverage to get the studio to distribute in the US. FOX reportedly committed a modest $10 million to market and distribute the passion project for Jackman. Deception was tracking very poorly going into release and opened in the US below its already low expectations with a disastrous $2,312,146 in 2,001 theaters, which at the time of release was the 6th worst opening for a film playing in over 2,000 theaters. Deception placed #10 for the weekend led by new openers Baby Mama and Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Audiences didn’t like what they saw any more than critics did and awarded the film with a toxic C- cinemascore. Deception fell 61.8% in its second weekend to $883,417 and was pulled out of all but 126 theaters and quickly closed its run with only $4,598,506. FOX would see back about $2.4 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross. The film posted weak numbers overseas to $13.1 million across numerous distributors and went straight to video in Germany. FOX distributed in Jackman’s home country Australia to a poor $1.4 million and Spain posted the strongest numbers with $2.6 million. Domestic home video sales were a terrible $2.7 million.