Bullet to the Head
| Budget: $38.8 million | Financed by: Dark Castle Entertainment |
|---|---|
| Domestic Gross: $9,489,829 | Domestic Distributor: Warner Bros |
| Overseas Gross: $13,108,140 | Directed by: Walter Hill |
Starring: Sylvester Stallone | Produced by: Joel Silver |
Bullet To The Head was financed by Joel Silver’s Dark Castle Entertainment and IM Global for a gross budget of $49,995,022. After a large Louisiana tax credit of $11,141,782, the net budget was $38.8 million. IM Global handled pre-sales, which sold well to distributors, limiting their exposure to the budget. Warner Bros handled domestic distribution, which was Joel Silver’s long standing studio home. In 2012 WB severed their relationship with Joel Silver and Bullet to the Head would be one of the last films under their distribution arrangement. WB had two remaining Dark Castle pictures left to distribute after Bullet — the long delayed The Factory, which was dumped straight to video and the dud Getaway.
The movie was originally scheduled for a release on April 13, 2012 but Warner Bros removed it from their calendar and eventually slotted it for February 1, 2013. After an expensive marketing spend, Stallone’s first solo staring vehicle outside of an established franchise in years, was tracking with an opening under $10 million. Bullet To The Head bowed over the Superbowl weekend, which would have the attention of most of its core demo and WB’s reasoning behind the release date was that Taken raked in cash over the same frame in 2009. Bullet would also be competing for scraps against the action pic Parker, which was released the weekend prior and also struggled at the box office.
The younger femme skewing pic Warm Bodies was the other wide opener and Bullet To The Head tanked with a terrible $4,548,201 in 2,404 theaters — opening numbers even worse than Schwarzenegger’s flop The Last Stand one month earlier. The pic placed #6 for the weekend led by Warm Bodies. Bullet To The Head fell a steep 54.3% in its second weekend to $2,078,192 and promptly lost most of its theater count. The domestic run closed with only $9,489,829. Warner Bros would see back about $5.2 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would barely dent the P&A expenses.
Overseas distributors that overpaid for this stinker, also saw terrible numbers. The offshore cume was just $13.1 million.