KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES

Keeping Up With The Joneses was a project developed by Parkes+MacDonald, which had a $10 million fund backed by Image Nation Abu Dhabi and they set the movie up at Fox 2000.  FOX financed the picture for $40 million and received some capital from TSG Entertainment, a $400 million slate financing deal the studio landed with Chip Selig, who created TSG to replace Dune Capital, which had the same basic co-financing deal at FOX — TSG Entertainment would co-finance FOX films between a quarter of the costs and half of the costs, depending on the project.  Keeping Up With The Joneses was originally dated for an April 1st release, but the film was order back into reshoots and later rescheduled for October 21st — only three weeks after the long delayed Zach Galifianakis starrer Masterminds.

In the week up to its release, Keeping Up With The Joneses was tracking for an opening near $12 million, but as atrocious reviews began to pour in, estimates lowered to $6 – $8 million.  FOX pumped north of $20 million into national TV ads and millions more in other traditional means of marketing, with a P&A spend in the $30 million range.  This disposable studio comedy opened over the crowded weekend against Boo! A Madea Halloween, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and Ouija: Origin of Evil and was dead on arrival with $5,461,475 opening weekend.  It placed #7 for the weekend led by Boo!  Keeping Up With The Joneses also posted the 8th worst opening for a movie booked into over 3,000 theaters.  There was a modest 37.9% second weekend decline to $3,390,107 and a steep 67.8% third frame drop to $1,092,302 and then it promptly lost most of its theater count.  The domestic run closed with just $14,904,426.  FOX would see returned about $8.1 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would not cover even 1/3 of their P&A expenses or put a dent in the budget.

Keeping Up With The Joneses was clearly a comedy designed for the domestic market and predictably pulled in soft numbers overseas.  The recorded offshore cume stands at $15 million.