Weinstein Co's panicked assurances that the firm is in good financial health aside, evidence of the financial fallout from the Harvey Weinstein scandal is finally beginning to emerge. And as it turns out, being exposed for tacitly condoning the behavior of an alleged sexual predator is really, really rough on the bottom line.
To wit, the Weinstein Co.’s first movie to be released since more than 50 women came forward to accuse former studio head Harvey Weinstein of sex crimes ranging from harassment to groping to assault grossed less than $800 during a one-day theatrical release, according to Variety.
While we don’t have the data handy, that’s got to be some kind of record – even when factoring in that it was a limited release. Making matters worse, the movie featured an all-star cast including Bella Thorne (who played the protagonist) and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Here’s Variety:
The Weinstein Company’s “Amityville: The Awakening” grossed a minuscule $742 total at 10 locations on Saturday, two weeks after the haunted house sequel began streaming for free on Google Play.
Bella Thorne, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jennifer Morrison, and Cameron Monaghan star in “Amityville: The Awakening,” which was directed by Franck Khalfoun from his own script. It’s produced by TWC’s Dimension and Blumhouse.
The original 1979 movie “The Amityville Horror” is based on the 1974 events at a rural house in Amityville, N.Y., which became the site of one of the deadliest hauntings and grisliest murders in American history when Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot all six members of his family. Jay Anson’s book “The Amityville Horror” detailed a family moving into the house in 1975 and leaving a week later due to paranormal activity.
The showing looks particularly paltry considering the 2005 remake of the original Amityville Horror earned $108 million worldwide. In “Amityville: The Awakening,” Thorne’s teenage character’s family moves into the house unaware of its haunted past.
The Weinstein Co. had planned to release the movie several times since last year before scrubbing the release date. It announced on Sept. 21 — two weeks before the massive Harvey Weinstein scandal broke — that “Amityville: The Awakening” would be available for free exclusively on Google Play from Oct. 12 to Nov. 8 and have a limited one-day theatrical release on Oct. 28, Variety reported.
Here’s a suspenseful clip from the film featuring Thorne’s character:
Harvey Weinstein is presently the subject of no fewer than four criminal probes being conducted by the FBI, NYPD, LAPD and Scotland Yard. He recently completed a two-week stint in a $2,000-a-night Arizona rehab facility.
The firm was reportedly in talks to sell most of its major assets to Colony Capital, which is run by Trump friend and adviser Thomas Barrick Jr. Colony supplied an emergency cash infusion to the firm shortly after the New York Times published its original story exposing Weinstein’s history of harassing and assasulting women and covering his tracks with settlements and NDAs.