Quentin Tarantino's Horrifying Weekend

Posted on April 9, 2007

Writer/director Quentin Tarantino had a very bad weekend: Grindhouse absolutely bombed at the box office, making only $11,596,613, and coming in fourth place. Will Ferrell's comedy, Blades of Glory was first, making $22,522,330.

Grindhouse was a box-office horror over the Easter weekend, opening in a disappointing fourth place with only $11.6 million, despite positive buzz for the faux double feature from directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, the Hollywood trade papers and wire services reported. The film seemed unlikely to recoup its estimated $53 million production cost, at least domestically.

Grindhouse opened lower than Disney's animated Meet the Robinsons, which placed second in its second weekend of release, taking in $17 million and raising its 10-day total to $52.2 million.

Grindhouse fell well short of expectations: Forecasters had figured the movie would premiere in the ballpark of Tarantino's two Kill Bill movies and Rodriguez's Sin City, whose opening weekends ranged from $22 million to $29 million, the Associated Press reported.

The movie's three-hour-plus running time was an impediment, limiting the number of screenings theaters could fit in. Grindhouse played to big crowds on the East and West coasts, but failed to click with audiences in the Midwest and South.

The reviews from major critics were good, which made the results all the more disappointing to the Weinsteins, who produced the film. We think that the Easter weekend was an absurd time to release the films: it's a family weekend when people want to see happy comedies, not violent, exploitation gorefests. Grindhouse should have opened in the fall, as is was originally scheduled to do. In any event, it should do well on DVD.

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