Eat Pray Love movie with Julia Roberts traveling the world in search of her inner self: International box office hit.- Eat Pray Love movie box office: Starring Julia Roberts, Ryan Murphy’s romantic drama had a relatively modest domestic debut, but has gone on to perform strongly overseas. Javier Bardem and James Franco costar.
Eat Pray Love movie box office: Julia Roberts’ critically panned romantic drama has a disappointing domestic debut
Aug. 13–15 weekend box office (cont.): Trailing The Expendables ($34.8 million) at the North American (U.S. and Canada only) box office, Ryan Murphy’s “inspirational” romantic drama Eat Pray Love – which received about as many dispiriting reviews as the Sylvester Stallone actioner – brought in an underwhelming $23.1 million from 3,082 theaters as per final studio figures found at boxofficemojo.com.
Looking ahead, it doesn’t hurt that this $60 million Sony Pictures release (as always, not including marketing and distribution expenses) stars Best Actress Academy Award winner Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich, 2000), cast as real-life U.S. journalist Elizabeth Gilbert, who, like career women everywhere, has the means to leave it all behind to go look for her inner self while pigging out in Italy, chanting om in India, and finding some Brazilian romance in Indonesia.
For comparison’s sake: Last year, Tony Gilroy’s $60 million romantic crime comedy Duplicity, starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, flopped both domestically and internationally – worldwide total: $78.2 million. And yet Roberts has been a reliable box office draw in releases revolving around romantic relationships, e.g. (worldwide totals), Mike Nichols’ Closer ($115.5 million), Joe Roth’s America’s Sweethearts ($138.3 million), Garry Marshall’s Runaway Bride ($309.5 million), etc.
Besides Julia Roberts, the Eat Pray Love cast includes Spaniard Javier Bardem (Oscar winner for No Country for Old Men, 2007) as the romantic Brazilian; Americans James Franco (as the then-divorcing heroine’s actor lover), Viola Davis (Oscar nominee for Doubt, 2008), Richard Jenkins (Oscar nominee for The Visitor, 2008), and Billy Crudup; Britisher Sophie Thompson; and Italian Luca Argentero offering some genuine local color.
Globe-trotting ‘inspirational’ tale is an international hit
Update: Eat Pray Love ultimately collected a passable $80.6 million domestically and a solid $124 million internationally. Worldwide total: $204.6 million.
That made the Julia Roberts star vehicle an unquestionably profitable endeavor.
Its top international territories were Germany ($14.3 million), Australia ($11.5 million), Brazil ($10.4 million), Japan ($8.9 million), the United Kingdom/Ireland ($7.4 million), Spain (Javier Bardem’s native country, with $6.7 million), France ($5.9 million), and Italy (where some of the action is set, with $5 million).
“Eat Pray Love Movie Box Office” endnotes
Unless otherwise noted, “Eat Pray Love Movie Box Office: International Success” box office information via Box Office Mojo. Budget info – which should be taken with a grain of salt – via BOM and/or other sources (e.g., the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Screen Daily, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline.com, etc.).
Comments about Eat Pray Love and other titles being hits/profitable or flops/money-losers at the box office (see paragraph below) are based on the available data about their production budget, additional marketing and distribution expenses (as a general rule of thumb, around 50 percent of the production cost), and worldwide gross (as a general rule of thumb when it comes to the Hollywood studios, around 50–55 percent of the domestic gross and 40 percent of the international gross goes to the distributing/producing companies).
Bear in mind that data regarding rebates, domestic/international sales/pre-sales, and other credits and/or contractual details that help to alleviate/split production costs and apportion revenues are oftentimes unavailable, and that reported international grosses may be incomplete (i.e., not every territory is fully – or even partially – accounted for).
Also bear in mind that ancillary revenues (domestic/global television rights, home video sales, streaming, merchandising, etc.) can represent anywhere between 40–70 percent of a movie’s total take. However, these revenues and their apportionment are only infrequently made public.
Julia Roberts Eat Pray Love movie image: François Duhamel | Columbia Pictures.
“Eat Pray Love Movie Box Office: International Success” last updated in February 2023.