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Sunday, November 22, 2009
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Jinxed
It was reported previously that MGM had cancelled the planned James Bond spin-off Jinx, which would have starred Halle Berry. And the Oscar winning actress is reportedly furious over this decision. It's not hard to see why she is mad; Jinx was the first of a planned franchise and had a movie pedigree most projects can never hope to match. Even if the movie didn't work and the character couldn't pull off a movie on her own it would still make $40 million for an opening weekend, $100 million domestically, better than that internationally and home market sales enough to push total revenue past $300 million. For a good example of this, see Lara Croft: Tomb Raider's performance. And that's if it didn't work, if it did work revenues could be much higher with many sequels to come.
What makes the decision even more unusual is the reason given, or lack of reason given. The producers were simply told to stop work on the movie. And it's not like MGM has a great track record when it comes to box office hits recently. Since Die Another Day was released and made $400 million worldwide, MGM has released more than a dozen films. And with the exception of two relatively low budget kids' movies (Agent Cody Banks and Good Boy!) and the sequel Legally Blonde 2, none have done well enough to show a profit, even by the time the initial home market is considered.
This isn't the first time this year MGM has made a seemingly foolhardy decision. They previously lost the director to Agent Cody Banks 2 over budget concerns which amounted to only a few million dollars. It's not surprising that MGM reported a loss of $32 million for the third quarter.
Submitted by: C.S.Strowbridge
Source: Variety
Date posted: 2003-10-29
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