LOVE RANCH

Love Ranch was beset by financing problems from the shady shenanigans by David Bergstein and Ron Tutor’s Capital Films, which was making a habit of backing films they couldn’t pay for (Accidental Love being one example) and leading to shut downs on numerous films.  After Love Ranch was shut down for a day because of late payments to actors for five straight weeks, Capital Films took an $8.8 million loan from Aramid Entertainment to help pay for the cash woes on numerous productions and used Love Ranch as collateral.  Capital never paid back Aramid and Aramid took control over Love Ranch and had to invest an additional $1.94 million so the pic could complete post production.  After Aramid foreclosed on Love Ranch, all of the overseas distributors who paid for foreign rights during pre-sales lost the rights as well.  Aramid put the film back onto the market, but there was little interest.  The $25 million budgeted film, which completed filming in 2008 was distributed in the US by eOne Entertainment, which primarily distributes in Canada and spent less than $1 million on P&A.  Love Ranch received generally awful reviews and opened in 11 theaters to $44,220 with a weak $4,020 per screen average.  The film never expanded beyond 11 theaters and closed after just four weeks with $137,885.  Overseas, the movie was released theatrically only in the United Arab Emirates to all of $8,264.  Love Ranch was sent straight to video in only a handful of markets, which picked up the film after Capital Films made the pic damaged goods.  In 2014 Aramid would seek bankruptcy protection after running out of funds to pay for legal services for the multiple lawsuits against Bergstein and also Relativity.