I dug out a copy of a box office prediction report for John Travolta's ill-fated Battlefield Earth, prepared by ShowBizData.com a few weeks before the film opened (and flopped) at the end of May. Warner Bros and Travolta's mysterious German backers undoubtedly had something similar to reassure themselves about the film being a good prospect. Boy, were they disappointed!

Here's what was predicted and what actually happened up to the end of July, when BE appears to have finally disappeared from the last few dollar theatres. It shows just what a horrific flop this film was.

The costs of the film were put at $36,959,491 with a US marketing spend of $18,237,729. (This is some way below the IMDB's figure of $73m - an odd discrepancy. Perhaps that figure represents the worldwide costs?) All the figures below are in $ US.

Estimated US gross: $38,676,732 Actual US gross (to 16th July): $21,471,685 Estimated 1st weekend gross: $8,314,168 Actual 1st weekend gross: $14,330,401 Estimated 1st week drop-off: -39% Actual 1st week drop-off: -66.01% Estimated Australia gross: $4,941,656 Estimated Brazil gross: $2,175,287 Estimated France gross: $5,810,816 Estimated Germany gross: $7,897,240 Actual Germany gross: $0 (release cancelled!) Estimated Hong Kong gross: $1,053,757 Estimated Italy gross: $4,026,145 Estimated Japan gross: $4,073,508 Estimated South Africa gross: $757,860 Estimated Spain gross: $3,439,569 Estimated Sweden gross: $1,743,624 Estimated UK gross: $8,412,287 Actual UK gross: probably under $400,000 (the film was pulled after only 2 weeks on release) Estimated UK 1st weekend gross: $2,891,878 Actual UK 1st weekend gross: $311,029 Estimated non-US gross: $63,639,408 Actual reported non-US gross: under $2,000,000 (!) Estimated worldwide gross: $102,316,140 Actual reported worldwide gross: under $24,000,000 Conclusion: the film's backers must really be hurting now...

-- | Chris Owen - chriso@OISPAMNOlutefisk.demon.co.uk | |---------------------------------------------------------------|

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