BEAUTIFUL CREATURES

Alcon Entertainment purchased the film rights to the three Young Adult books, in hopes to spark another profitable YA series and Alcon would cover Beautiful Creatures’ P&A costs through Warner Bros for domestic distribution.  Summit International pre-sold rights to distributors in the European market and sold the pic out very quickly for extremely high pre-sale numbers.  Germany distributor Tele Muenchen picked up the rights for $8 million and Entertainment Film Distributors took UK rights for over $5 million.  The $60 million production had much of its budget covered by the pre-sales, which puts Alcon in better shape than the distributors who gobbled up this huge bomb.  After a heavy US marketing spend by Alcon, Beautiful Creatures opened in 2,950 theaters over the Valentine Day frame with competition against Safe Haven to get femme audiences and it tanked with a poor $7,582,595.  The pic dropped 52.4% in its second weekend to $3,608,333 and closed with a disappointing $19,452,138 at the box office.  Alcon would see back about $10.7 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would cover about only a third of the ad spend — plus a fee to Warner Bros for use of their distribution arm.  Entertainment Film Distributors opened Beautiful Creatures wide in the UK in 423 theaters to a poor $1,740,616 placing #5 for the weekend.  The film sank 64.1% in its second weekend to $625,211 and closed with $3,760,105.  Germany distributor Tele Muenchen saw an awful $391,517 opening weekend and it quickly flopped out of theaters with $761,556.  The film tanked in every territory, with the exception of a modest $6.7 million in France, accumulating a $40.8 million overseas total across numerous distributors.  Yet another would be YA franchise that fizzled.