INHERENT VICE

Inherent Vice

While promoting director Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous feature The Master, he announced his followup project Inherent Vice, which Megan Ellison said she would finance, but after The Master pulled in poor numbers worldwide that lost most of her investment, she pulled out of the project. Warner Bros came in and sole financed and distributed the well reviewed Inherent Vice for $20 million and spent more than the budget on a solid domestic marketing spend. The film was positioned as an end of the year awards player and bowed in limited release on December 12 in 5 theaters. It pulled in $328,184 with a stellar $65,637 per screen average. Inherent Vice remained in limited release for a month and amassed $1.4 million.

Warner Bros expanded the picture to 645 theaters in its 5th weekend, where it struggled and pulled in a soft $2,773,260 — placing #11 for the weekend led by Taken 3. WB invested in a solid P&A spend to aid the expansion and spent $15.3 million in television ads (as per iSpotTV) and even with poor box office returns and barely a wide release, Warner Bros kept throwing money at more ads, bringing the national airings to well over $20 million in costs — plus millions more in print, online, radio, virtual print fees, etc. The following weekend Inherent Vice added 8 theaters with diminishing returns, where it sank 59.2% to $1,130,388 which would kill off a further expansion. Inherent Vice sputtered out of release with a poor $8,110,975. Warner Bros would see returned about $4.4 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross.

Overseas, the film pulled in PT Anderson’s lowest haul since Punch Drunk Love and grossed a mere $6.6 million.