NOBEL SON

Nobel Son

Made for an inexpensive $4 million, but millions more to market, Nobel Son was released by rent-a-distributor Freestyle Releasing in the US, by director Randall Miller who saw minor success self distributing Bottle Shock a few months prior through Freestyle. Voltage Pictures sold international rights, to the few distributors who picked it up. Freestyle co-president Susan Jackson was quoted as saying, “The marketing opportunities are tremendous. We are convinced this will capture the same young male audience that ‘Crank’ and ‘Smokin’ Aces’ did last year.” The film captured the attention of only a handful of people who showed up, when the film posted some of the worst opening numbers on record with $333,912 in 893 theaters and a $374 per screen average. Going into its second weekend, Nobel Son was dropped from all but 99 theaters and sank 95% to $16,603 and was yanked from release after three weeks with $540,382. It opened on 2 screens in Italy to $5,200 and went straight to video in every market. Years later, director Randall Miller would end up pleading guilty for involuntary manslaughter for the death of crew member Sarah Jones on the set of Midnight Rider in 2014.