The Hollywood Reporter
Hypnotic, who?
It’s unusual, to say the least, for a movie directed by the likes of Robert Rodriguez and starring Ben Affleck to barely be a blip on the radar of new movies opening the box office.
This lack of awareness helps explain why Hypnotic opened to a scant $2.4 million from 2,118 theaters over the May 14-16 weekend to mark the worst nationwide opening of any film directed by Rodriguez or starring Affleck. Hypnotic stands to lose tens of millions, after costing a reported $65 million to make, and reinforces what every savvy Hollywood studio executive knows: spending on marketing is essential.
The sci-fi action-thriller suffered several setbacks on the road to the big screen, capped by the implosion of Solstice Studios in late 2021, which had been set to market and release the film.
Solstice, led by indie veteran Mark Gill, had been counting on Hypnotic to forge its future. But the young company was derailed by the pandemic despite the modest success of 2000’s Unhinged. (The Russell Crowe road-rage thriller did relatively well in theaters considering the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.)
Months earlier, Solstice struck a strategic partnership with Jeff Robinov’s Studios 8, and Hypnotic was their first project together (the two had worked together when Robinov was head of production at Warner Bros. and Gill headed up Warner Independent).
Solstice was tasked with marketing the film and handling U.S. distribution, along with international sales. The movie whipped up keen interest among foreign buyers, who put up a significant share of the film’s reported $65 million budget after being sure it would get a U.S. release in more than 2,000 locations.
But when the Solstice leadership decamped, Hypnotic seemingly disappeared from the radar until earlier this year, when foreign buyers attending the Berlin Film Festival market were informed that boutique outfit Ketchup had come aboard as U.S. distributor.
Ketchup did not respond to requests for comment.
The movie screened at South by Southwest earlier this year as a work-in-progress and opened in the U.S. ahead of its international premiere in a Midnight slot at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. (The film’s financiers are no doubt hoping that the Cannes slot helps sales at the foreign box office.)
In the U.S., the marketing campaign for Hypnotic was minimal at best, with Affleck himself doing no press. Insiders speculate that the film’s release date tried to piggyback on the marketing campaign for Air, Affleck’s acclaimed Nike sports drama that received an exclusive run in theaters before debuting on Prime Video over the weekend.
In Hypnotic, Affleck plays Detective Danny Rourke, who is brooding over the unsolved abduction of his 7-year-old daughter and trying to sort out what forces are responsible. Alice Braga and William Fichtner also star.
Until now, 1998’s Phantoms marked the lowest wide opening of Affeck’s career ($3 million), followed by 2003’s Gigli ($3.8 million), according to Comscore and not adjusted for inflation. Wide is defined in this case as 1,500 or more screens.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
