Budget: $30m | Financed by: Movision; Studios DeLux; Istituto Luce; Spice Factory; UK Film Council |
Domestic Gross: $3,765,585 | Domestic Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics |
Overseas Gross: $17,652,140 |
The Merchant of Venice was budgeted at $30m and was financed by the British tax fund Movision, Luxembourg’s Studios DeLux, Italy’s Istituto Luce, Australia based Spice Factory and the UK Film Council invested £609,000 ($970,000). Arclight Films sold the film to international distributors. Sony Pictures Classics acquired US rights and opened the film in 4 theaters for an Oscar qualifying run on Dec 31 and the film pulled in $69,868 with a decent $17,467 per screen average. The Merchant of Venice remained in limited release for 21 weeks and never expanded beyond 107 theaters and pulled in $3,765,585. Overseas, distributors also did not do much in the way of an expensive release and Optimum distributed in the UK and opened the film in 67 theaters to $287,092 and the film never expanded and closed with $2.1m. The German numbers were a weak $1.7m and it went straight to video in 2006 in France. The overseas total was $17,652,140 across numerous distributors.