BLINDNESS

Focus pre-sold Blindness to 42 territories at the 2007 Cannes, which covered the entire $25 million budget.  Canadian TeleFilm invested $2.5 million into the film and received their investment back before the film was released.  Blindness was also a co-production of Brazil’s 02 and Japan’s Bee Vine.  Miramax acquired US rights for $5 million.  Blindness opened the 2008 Cannes Film Festival in competition and was poorly received.  After the response at the festival, director Fernando Meirelles continued editing on the picture.

Miramax originally planned on a limited release on September 19 to build word of mouth, but mixed reviews had the studio abandon the platform release and instead they opened the film moderately wide on October 3.  Blindness opened in 1,690 theaters against six other wide releases — Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Flash of Genius, An American Carol, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and Religulous.  It pulled in an awful $1,950,260 — placing outside the top 10 at #12.  Blindness dropped a huge 75% to $486,726 in its second weekend and was pulled from release after its second week with a terrible $3,351,751 total.  Miramax would see returned about $1.8 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which barely puts a dent in their modest P&A expenses.

FOX released the film in Brazil which posted the strongest international number at $4 million.  The overseas cume was a small $16.4 million across many distributors.