P2

Financed by Summit and their first film out of the gate as a distributor, P2 barely made a blip on the box office radar.  P2 was in the can before Summit went from a foreign sales outfit and partial investor of films to a fully functional production and distribution company, infused by $1 billion from Merrill Lynch in April 2007.  P2 was financed under the previous operations at Summit, which pre-sold the film, covering the entire $8 million budget.  Summit gave P2 a modest P&A spend and booked the horror pic wide in 2,131 theaters and at the time of release it posted the worst opening on record for a film playing in over 2,000 theaters with $2,083,398 and a $977 per screen average.  It placed #9 for the weekend led by holdovers Bee Movie and American Gangster and new openers Fred Claus and the flop Lions For Lambs.  P2 dropped 59.1% in its second weekend to $851,387 and promptly lost most of its theater count.  It quickly closed with only $3,995,018 which would leave Summit with about $2.1 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross.  Tartan picked up UK distribution rights during pre-sales and opened the film moderately wide in 161 theaters to a dismal $72,198 with a $582 per screen average and ranking #20 for the weekend.  It bombed out of UK theaters with just $141,787 and pulled in an overseas total of $3.7 million across numerous distributors.  P2 went straight to video in Germany and Australia.  Not a good start for Summit Entertainment.  Summit also launched a home video division as part of its expansion and P2 cumed $4.3 million (less after resellers take their cut and manufacturing costs).  Summit continued to struggle with their releases until the following November when they hit gold with Twilight.