“Grace Is Gone” (2007)
Harvey Weinstein‘s approach to the awards season can sometimes be summed up as “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” — anything with even the sniff of awards hopes is often pounced on by the mogul, only to be forgotten when hotter prospects emerge. One such picture was “Grace Is Gone,” picked up from Sundance in the early years of Harvey’s new company. James Strouse‘s drama about a father (John Cusack, in one of his best performances) taking his children on a road trip in order to delay telling them about the death of their soldier mother was acquired by The Weinstein Company for around the $4 million mark, planning an awards push for the lead role. But even with a new score by Clint Eastwood, of all people, it never got any traction, and made a dreadful $50,000 in theaters.
“Son Of Rambow” (2007)
Arguably the best film on this section of the list, “Son Of Rambow,” the impossibly charming coming-of-age tale that marked the second film from music video veteran Garth Jennings, who made his debut with studio picture “The Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy,” was the big buy at Sundance 2007, selling to Paramount Vantage for $7.5 million. But rights complications (owing to both the title and the use of clips from “First Blood“) held up the release for over a year, and while the film was a hit in its native U.K. and elsewhere (taking $10 million worldwide), it made less than $2 million in the U.S after opening head to head with “Iron Man.”
“Hamlet 2” (2008)
Ever since “Napoleon Dynamite,” buyers had been on the lookout for the next big summer comedy sleeper, and it seemed to arrive in the shape of “Hamlet 2,” a high-school set laffer from “The Craft” director Andrew Fleming, “South Park” writer Pam Brady, and starring the long-in-search-of-a-breakout-vehicle Steve Coogan. Focus were the ones who bit the bullet, stumping up a record-equaling $10 million after a bidding war, but the curse of that sum hit again, and the film only made $5 million back after a questionable August release date.
“Choke” (2008)
2008 was not a great year for the festival, with films like “Assassination Of A High School President,” “Transsiberian,” “What Just Happened,” “The Escapist” and “The Great Buck Howard” all under-performing when they finally made it to screens. So on reflection, given the lack of competition, it’s perhaps more understandable why Fox Searchlight paid $5 million for Clark Gregg‘s “Choke,” a not-especially-commercial Chuck Palahaniuk adaptation starring Sam Rockwell, Kelly Macdonald and Gillian Jacobs. While reasonably well-received, it never quite got a foothold with audiences, and made back only $3 million for the shingle.
“The Details” (2011)
We suppose we could see how this could be attractive — an offbeat, dark comedy with a starry cast including Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney, Ray Liotta, Dennis Haysbert and Kerry Washington. And certainly Harvey was gung ho, with The Weinstein Company beating out Summit and paying a staggering $7.5 million plus making a P&A commitment upward of $10 million. Well, your guess is as good as ours as to where the money for marketing went, because it quickly became clear that Harv and co. cooled on Jacob Aaron Estes‘ film. Sitting on the shelf for well over a year, the movie was quietly dumped on VOD and given a cursory theatrical release last fall where it picked up a measly $63,000. But don’t worry about Estes, David Fincher is producing his next film.
