TAKING WOODSTOCK

Taking Woodstock

Focus financed this $30 million Ang Lee film and reportedly had most of its investment returned from strong foreign pre-sales. Taking Woodstock was heavily marketed in the US, trying to build hype with the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, with tie ins with VH-1, the History Channel and Sirius radio. Focus released the film in 1,393 theaters over the slow Labor Day frame as counter-programming to two horror pics opening (The Final Destination and Halloween II), where it placed #9 with a poor $3,457,760. Taking Woodstock dropped a steep 57.1% in its second frame to $1,483,183 and promptly lost most of its theater count. It closed with only $7,460,204. After theaters take their percentage of the gross, Focus would see back about $4.1 million, which barely puts a dent in their P&A spend. In 2013 Focus’s parent company Universal would replace the head of Focus James Schamus (who also wrote Taking Woodstock’s screenplay) and cited the costly flops Promised Land and Taking Woodstock as some of the reasons of his removal and that Focus would be retooled as more commercially friendly. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Ang Lee said he was baffled as to why the film tanked and was his worst performing film in over a decade. The world renowned director would see even less interest outside of the US, with the film posting terrible numbers everywhere to just a $2.5 million overseas total across many presumably unhappy distributors who overpaid for the film.