ALOHA

Aloha

Aloha cost $37 million and was financed by Sony who contributed roughly 50%, New Regency 25%, RatPac 25% and LStar Capital (a $200 million equity line at Sony that covers a slate of films) which partially contributed to Sony’s end. Aloha was originally scheduled to be released over Christmas 2014 and in the hacked Sony emails, the studio estimated the box office gross to be $90 million. Also in the emails, the studio green-lit a marketing budget for $48,300,000. Aloha was pushed back to May 29, 2015 and the delay was followed by disparaging remarks of the movie from Sony executives, which also leaked from the emails. In the months leading to release, there was a strong backlash against the casting of Emma Stone as a person of Chinese-Hawaiian heritage and buzz around the finished project became toxic.

Despite the star power of Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone, Aloha had little hype and was tracking for a $12 million to $15 million opening weekend. It received poor reviews and bowed against San Andreas. Aloha came in below its modest expectations with $9,670,235 in 2,815 theaters — placing #6 for the weekend. The film saw a huge 66.5% second weekend decline to $3,240,312 and a 69.3% drop in its third frame to $994,396. Aloha closed its domestic run with only $21,067,116. Sony would see back about $11.5 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, leaving much of the P&A spend in the red and the budget untouched.

After the box office juggernaut American Sniper, Cooper saw his long delayed Serena barely make a blip on the box office radar just a few months earlier and 5 months after the release of Aloha, the Bradley Cooper vehicle Burnt tanked at the box office. Aloha was released in most overseas territories by FOX and the recorded numbers are just $5,182,904. FOX dumped the pic straight to video in the UK and France.