CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT

Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant was equally co-financed for $40 million between Universal and Relativity and this would-be franchise based on a long series of books, flopped worldwide. The studio pushed up the release date from a early 2010 release to October 2009, a month before The Twilight Saga: New Moon (directed by Paul Weitz’s brother Chris) opened. Universal booked the film in the US as their Halloween release, in 2,754 theaters to a poor $6,293,205 — when Paranormal Activity and Saw VI led the weekend and it even opened behind the animated flop Astro Boy. The film showed little staying power and declined 50.8% in its second frame to $3,098,185 and sank 63.1% in its third weekend to $1,143,905. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant quietly closed with just $13,869,515 which would leave Universal with about $7.6 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would cover about 1/3 of the US ad spend. Universal put the film out overseas and split the distribution with their UIP branch (joint distribution between Universal and Paramount) to weak numbers, with $6.4 million from Japan as the strongest territory and the overseas total was a poor $25.3 million — which would kill off the potential series. Domestic video sales were $9.8 million (less after resellers take their cut and manufacturing costs).