20 years after they originally hit the screen, Bill And Ted Face The Music had a bit of a unique release strategy.
Already expected to release on demand, it also had a worldwide theatrical release on-top of this in the USA.
Looking at box office figures, it took a conservative $3.2 Million at the United States box office, “pretty impressive considering a lot of North American theatres are still closed down” reports Movieweb.
It had a Troubled Production
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
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The film was first shopped around back in 2010 and struggled to find a studio whom would back its release and get the filming started.
The script written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon (who wrote the original movies) seemed to hang in wait.
Whist the films had been moderately successful back in the early 90’s it had a reputation for this being attributed to a “cult-y” fanbase.
Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure released in 1989 was only released inside America.
Created with a budget of $6.5m it became a great success turning over $40.5m at the box office.
Bill And Ted Face The Music might have benefitted from the ‘John Wick effect’
Credit: Lionsgate
Read more: Bill And Ted Face The Music Review
The lack of international familiarity along with what distributors deemed an unprofitable release, it was only when John Wick in 2014 relaunched Keanu Reeves career into the headlines, that it picked up steam once again.
Amongst further pressure for fans on social media, the writers finally got the backing they needed to create the film, along with Reeves enthusiasm for reprising his role.
MGM eventually took the distribution rights, and this is where it gets interesting with their release strategy in our post-COVID Hollywood.
They agreed a 15% cut of the profits, in exchange for a distribution fee, and gave an additional $15 million for marketing costs.
The film as it stands has made $3.2m at the box office in the USA, along with a $1.79m from International markets.
This includes the UK where it’s taken over $1 million alone, which is good news for Warner Bros. Pictures who took over the distribution rights outside of the USA.
In a usual year, this film would have certainly struggled to get over the 500k line in the UK.
Yet the fact there is so little content playing at the moment, has helped the box office tremendously as the film has been the only real alternative to Tenet.
But the biggest news is via streaming, the film has also taken an estimated $32m.
That sits the film’s current gross at around $37m.
Bill And Ted Face The Music Made $7 to 8 Million in Profit
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
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Deadline reports that the film stands at the moment to make at least a $7-8m profit at the current stage of its release.
Not a bad day at the office for MGM, considering they didn’t even have a hand in the film’s creation this is a great result.
Perhaps a sign of things to come for other riskier, smaller titles over the next 12 months ahead.
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