A historical epic starring Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac, helmed by a critically respected director like Terry George (Hotel Rwanda), would seem like a decent bet with mainstream moviegoers. And yet this Fridays debut of The Promise is shaping up to be a big loser on the balance sheet, at least according to this weekends box office preview at The Hollywood Reporter.
In her forecast, THRs Pamela McClintock writes that things are looking exceedingly bleak for the Bale-Isaac romantic drama, which is set against the backdrop of Armenian genocide. Produced for $100 million by the late Kirk Kerkorian via his Survival Pictures, The Promise is predicted to net only about $4 million domestically, which considering what that means for its prospects in subsequent weeks is a doomsday scenario. While producers are downplaying such a situation, claiming that whats really important is that all theatrical receipts go toward funding nonprofits (including Elton Johns AIDS foundation), theres no way to truly sugarcoat its expected box-office crash and burn.
Eric Esrailian, now in charge at Survival, told THR where he places the blame: It became clear that the government of Turkey was going to have an influence on this movie. One of the most insidious realities of our existence in the United States is that foreign governments can control art. I would say at the highest levels from different studios, we were just basically told that no matter how good the film would be, it was never going be released by certain companies. I think that thats truly shameful, but its just a reality that we had to deal with.
