The ensemble crime drama Billionaire Boys Club did anything but billionaire business this past weekend, pulling in just $618 in total from the 11 cities where the film opened. The film did premier last month on Video on Demand streaming services where it did moderately well before transitioning to this weekend’s theatrical release.
The film stars Ansel Elgort and Taron Egerton in the real life story of two prep school boys who execute a Ponzi scheme in the 1980s. But third billed in the cast is Kevin Spacey, whose career has become toxic following several sexual assault allegations last fall. At the time the scandal broke, distributor Vertical Entertainment stated that they would still go forward with the release of the film. Sony Pictures, with their much deeper pockets, cut Spacey from their upcoming All The Money In The World, with director Ridley Scott reshooting Spacey’s scenes with Christopher Plummer.
Breaking down that $618 total, we see that averages to approximately $56 per screen for the weekend. Given that the average ticket price is $9.27, that gives us an average of six people seeing the film at each theater over the three day weekend.
The film opened in Phoenix, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Hartford/New Haven, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New Orleans, San Francisco and Sarasota.
Normally films that premier on VOD before moving to a theatrical release don’t do very well at the box office, but Billionaire Boys Club is doing poorly even by that standard. Now it would be tempting to say that the low – Let’s face it, nearly non-existent – turnout for the film could be blamed on the film already being available on premium Video on Demand streaming services or that Spacey is still toxic in the minds of moviegoers. More than likely, though, this dump of a theatrical release was only done to fulfill contractual obligations and Vertical did not feel that it was worth investing any money into advertising this nominal release.
Emma Roberts, Jeremy Irvine, Cary Elwes, Judd Nelson and Billie Lourde also star.
