THE GUNMAN

The Gunman

The Gunman went into production with a budget at about $50 million and after an 18% tax incentive from Spain, the budget was reported at $40 million. StudioCanal fully financed The Gunman and pre-sold the hot title very well at Cannes in 2013, selling out almost every market. Buyers also viewed the project as a potential franchise. Open Road (owned by theater chains Regal and AMC) acquired US rights at Cannes in 2014 and committed to a wide release and a hefty P&A spend. The Gunman was first dated for February 20 and then shifted to March 20 opening as counter-programming to The Divergent Series: Insurgent.

Open Road spent $18.4 million in national TV spots (as per iSpotTV) and millions more in radio, online and other marketing and booked The Gunman into 2,816 theaters. It received terrible reviews and was tracking for a soft $8 million opening, but pulled in a terrible $5,028,702 — where it was competing with holdover action fare Kingsman: The Secret Service and Run All Night. The Gunman had weak legs and collapsed 59.5% in its second frame to $2,035,989 and it declined a huge 81.1% in its third frame to $385,194 and promptly lost most of its theater count. The film quietly left theaters after six weeks with just $10,664,749 at the domestic box office, which would leave much of Open Road’s P&A spend in the red and no cash overages to flow back to StudioCanal.

StudioCanal distributed the film in the UK to a terrible $1.3 million and they also distributed in Australia to a disastrous $402,055. The Gunman opened in France through StudioCanal and tanked with $1.1 million. The Gunman pulled in just $13.5 million from its overseas release, across numerous distributors who overpaid for the film.