Hot Pursuit
| Budget: $35 million | Financed by: Warner Bros (New Line); MGM; Rat-Pac |
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| Domestic Gross: $34,580,201 | Domestic Distributor: Warner Bros |
| Overseas Gross: $17,100,000 |
Directed by: Anne Fletcher
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Starring:
Reese Witherspoon
Sofia Vergara
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Produced by: Reese Witherspoon
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Hot Pursuit was originally in development at Universal under the title Don’t Mess With Texas in 2013, but the studio put the project into turnaround and MGM boarded to fully finance. Warner Bros’ New Line division eventually came on to co-finance 37.5% of the costs, with MGM covering 50% and Rat-Pac 12.5% for the $35 million budget and Warner Bros would distribute Hot Pursuit. Warner Bros heavily marketed the film in the US with over $35 million in just television ads and millions more in print, poster, online, etc and the film was tracking for an opening between $15 million – $20 million, as counter programming to the second weekend of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The D Train also bowed that weekend.
Hot Pursuit received awful reviews and came in below expectations with $13,942,258 in 3,003 theaters — placing a distant #2 for the weekend led by the Avengers sequel. Audiences gave the buddy comedy a toxic C+ cinemascore and the movie declined a steep 59% the following weekend to $5,722,488. Hot Pursuit fell a modest 36.4% over the Memorial Day frame to $3,639,336 but sank 61.5% in its fourth weekend to $1,402,067 and quickly left theaters with $34,580,201. Warner Bros would see back about $19 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, leaving over half of their P&A costs in the red.
Overseas numbers were terrible and stalled with just $17.1 million, with Mexico posting the highest gross at only $2.5 million.