THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY

The Brothers Grimsby

The Brothers Grimsby was originally setup at Paramount, but the studio passed on the project when the budget was expected to hit $80 million. Development moved over to Sony and in the hacked emails at WikiLeaks, the budget was reported at $65 million. Village Roadshow boarded as co-financier with Sony and additional coin was provided by LStar Capital, which covered 18.75% of the budget. Sony first dated The Brothers Grimsby for July 31, 2015, but Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation booked that date and Sony pushed the spy comedy to February 26, 2016. It shifted again to March 4, before settling on March 11, where it would open against 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Perfect Match and The Young Messiah. As with his previous vehicles, Sacha Baron Cohen promoted the hell out of the film, traveling to college campuses and going out on the PR circuit mostly in character. Sony gave the pic a modest P&A spend and it was tracking soft with an opening near $10 million, but it was dead on arrival with $3,258,327 — placing #8 for the weekend led by holdover Zootopia and 10 Cloverfield Lane. It sank 56.4% the following weekend to $1,420,281 and promptly lost most of its theater count. The Brothers Grimsby closed its US run after 5 weeks with a terrible $6,874,837.

Sony opened the pic wide in the UK in 522 theaters, where Sacha Baron Cohen is a reliable box office draw and it was savaged by critics and pulled in a weak $2,676,420 opening weekend. It took a 57.1% second frame plunge to $1,147,205 and closed its UK run with a very disappointing $7,564,877. Village Roadshow distributed in their home country Australia and it took in only $2.8 million. The overseas cume stalled at just $18.3 million. The worldwide gross came to $25.1 million and Sony would see back about $13.8 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, leaving much of their P&A expenses in the red and the budget at a loss.