For Colored Girls movie with Kimberly Elise and Michael Ealy: Tyler Perry drama is a box office disappointment in spite of its low budget and name cast.- For Colored Girls box office: Despite its stellar cast (Janet Jackson, Kimberly Elise, Whoopi Goldberg, etc.), Tyler Perry’s latest effort has underperformed in the domestic market, particularly when compared to the director’s other recent titles.
- In other domestic box office news, Robert Schwentke’s star-studded action comedy RED is holding strong while the Danny Boyle-James Franco collaboration 127 Hours is doing great business at a handful of theaters.
For Colored Girls box office: All-star Tyler Perry drama performing far below expectations
Nov. 5–7 weekend box office (cont.): Trailing Tom McGrath’s 3D comedy Megamind ($46 million) and Todd Phillips’ R-rated road comedy Due Date ($32.7 million), Tyler Perry’s critically lambasted ensemble drama For Colored Girls opened with an underwhelming $19.5 million from 2,127 North American (U.S. and Canada only) theaters according to final studio figures found at boxofficemojo.com.
That’s far below box office pundits’ expectations for this Lionsgate release, which ranged between $22–$32 million. Besides, For Colored Girls’ debut landed well below recent Perry titles like I Can Do Bad All By Myself ($23.4 million), and the sequels Madea Goes to Jail ($41 million) and Why Did I Get Married Too? ($29.3 million).
The potential silver lining: For Colored Girls reportedly cost a modest $21 million (as always, not including marketing and distribution expenses).
In the For Colored Girls cast: Janet Jackson, Kimberly Elise, Kerry Washington, Loretta Devine, Thandie Newton, Macy Gray, Michael Ealy, Omari Hardwick, Anika Noni Rose, Tessa Thompson, Khalil Kain, Hill Harper, Richard Lawson, and Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost, 1990).
Update: Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls ultimately collected a mediocre $37.7 million domestically and, as usual for Perry movies, a dismal amount overseas, where he has no following: $252,000 (almost all of it from South Africa).
Worldwide total: $39 million – hardly enough for the low-budget drama to recover its productions costs at the box office alone.
Star-studded humorous actioner RED still going strong
For the record, rounding out the Top Five movies on this past weekend’s box office chart were:
- At no. 4, Robert Schwentke’s sleeper hit RED grossed $8.7 million (down only 19 percent – not even Inception was that sturdy – on its fourth weekend). Cume: $71.7 million. Cast: Bruce Willis, and Oscar winners Helen Mirren (The Queen, 2006) and Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby, 2004).
- At no. 5, Kevin Greutert’s horror thriller Saw 3D grossed $7.7 million (down a whopping 66 percent on its second weekend). Cume: $38.3 million. Cast: Tobin Bell, Cary Elwes, and Costas Mandylor.
Danny Boyle’s real-life-based drama 127 Hours packing them in
Lastly, here are three titles that opened at a small number of theaters this past weekend: 127 Hours, Fair Game, and the British import Four Lions.
At only four locations, Danny Boyle’s real-life-based self-mutilation – or rather, “survival of the human spirit” – drama 127 Hours, starring James Franco as a trapped hiker, pulled in $265,000 for a remarkable $66,212 per venue. So far this year, only Lisa Cholodenko’s lesbian family comedy-drama The Kids Are All Right boasted a higher average ($70,281 at seven locations in July). 127 Hours distributor: Fox Searchlight. Budget: $18 million.
Doing reasonably well in limited release is another real-life-based drama, Doug Liman’s Fair Game, starring Oscar nominee Naomi Watts (21 Grams, 2003) as outed CIA spy Valerie Plame and Oscar winner Sean Penn (Mystic River, 2003) – seen opposite Watts in 21 Grams – as her husband. Fair Game drew in $651,000 from 46 sites; average: $14,153, which is not exactly an impressive figure for a movie showing at so few venues. Distributor: Summit Entertainment. Budget: $22 million.
Performing weakly at eight theaters despite mostly good reviews, Christopher Morris’ British Independent Film Award nominee Four Lions scored only $41,500 (average: $5,189). This political comedy about a group of bumbling would-be terrorists features Riz Ahmed, Arsher Ali, Nigel Lindsay, Kayvan Novak, Adeel Akhtar, Julia Davis, and Benedict Cumberbatch. Distributor: Drafthouse Films.
”For Colored Girls Box Office” endnotes
Unless otherwise noted, “For Colored Girls Box Office: All-Star Tyler Perry Drama Performing Well Below Expectations” 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 For Colored Girls 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.
Kimberly Elise and Michael Ealy For Colored Girls movie image: Lionsgate.
“For Colored Girls Box Office: All-Star Tyler Perry Drama Performing Well Below Expectations” last updated in October 2022.
2 comments
Thank you Mr.TP,viewed the movie on sunday afternoon and loved every moment of it. looking back on my life i saw a little bit of me in every one of these ladies. i think this is a great girl movie for you to take your young grandaughter,sister,niece, cousin or any younglady to see and afterwards go sit down and talk about.I’ll share my thoughts with my daughter when she sees it. :-))
As one of very few males in attendance, Unequivocally, it was fantastic! A must see equally for women and men. It’s not TP’s typical because he puts religionist and religious dogma on blast. Woopie’s character speaks volume to black culture. As the most religious group in America, Blacks are easily misguided and miseducated by religious fairytales, supernatural, and religious dogma as the basics for morality and decision making. There must always be good evidence for beliefs, religious or otherwise. This is the most fundamental tenet of rationalism.
I wanted to see it immediately afterwards because there is so much to analyze; each character has depth: so much to assess, extract and analyze. What a great discussion movie. Bravo TP!!