Blackhat
| Budget: $70 million | Financed by: Legendary |
|---|---|
| Domestic Gross: $8,005,980 | Domestic Distributor: Legendary (through Universal) |
| Overseas Gross: 11,659,879 | Directed by: Michael Mann |
Starring: Chris Hemsworth Viola Davis | Produced by: Thomas Tull |
Blackhat was financed by Legendary Pictures and the expensive marketing spend was also covered by Legendary which distributed through Universal and the studio received a fee for use of their distribution resources. After a new 30% tax rebate for filming in Malaysia and other tax incentive friendly locations, the budget was reported at $70 million. Blackhat was dated for January 16, 2015 and it was reported in mid 2014 that it might land a limited Oscar qualifying release at the end of the year, before expanding wide. The Oscar qualifying bow was scrapped and Legendary gave the pic a pricey marketing push, spending $20.4 million just on TV spots going into release and millions more after its opening, plus millions spent on print, online, radio, etc — with a domestic P&A spend far north of $30 million.
Blackhat opened against The Wedding Ringer, Paddington and the wide expansion of American Sniper and received mixed to poor reviews. It had a disastrous opening at $3,901,815 — placing #10 for the weekend led by American Sniper. Audiences gave the pic a terrible C- cinemascore and Blackhat sank 57.3% in its second frame to $1,667,975 and was pulled out of all but 236 theaters going into its third weekend. It was quickly out of release with just $8,005,980.
After the poor domestic total, Legendary pulled the Australian theatrical release and dumped it straight to video. The overseas release cumed just $11.6 million and most markets saw numbers well under $1 million. After the costly P&A spend and theaters percentage of the gross, Blackhat‘s box office numbers would lead to a $90 million write down on the $70 million film. Legendary had a rough start in 2015 between the $90 million loss on Blackhat and an $85 million loss on Seventh Son. In January 2016, the Chinese company Wanda acquired Legendary for $3.5 billion and in their financial statements, which were attained by the hollywoodreporter, Legendary lost $555.6 million in 2015. Blackhat, Seventh Son, Steve Jobs and Crimson Peak contributed to the loss.