THE SOLOIST

The Soloist

The Soloist was co-financed for $60 million between Dreamworks, Participant Media (who finances mostly social issues films) and Working Title, which is owned by Universal. The Soloist would be distributed by Paramount through DreamWorks’ long standing distribution arrangement. Shortly before what was to be an Oscar qualifying release in 2008, Dreamworks and Paramount ended their relationship and it has been assumed that as retribution, Paramount delayed The Soloist until April 2009 so they could focus their awards attention on their Oscar hopeful The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and they would push awards consideration for Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder instead of The Soloist. The picture was heavily promoted by Paramount and opened in the US to a disappointing $9,716,458 — placing #4 for the weekend led by the silly Beyonce thriller Obsessed. Paramount had hopes that strong word of mouth and also since the pic skewed to older auds, it would play well over the next few weeks. The Soloist saw an ok hold next weekend with 41.8% decline in attendance to $5,654,558 and a decent 30.2% third frame decline to $3,949,430 but it closed with just $31,720,158. Paramount would see back about $17.4 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would be far below the domestic P&A spend. UIP (joint distribution between Universal and Paramount) put the film out overseas to small returns at $6.6 million and sent the film straight to video in Russia. Domestic home video sales were $12.5 million (less after resellers take their cut and manufacturing costs).