Will Smith’s new action thriller Gemini Man is a box office flop. The movie is about a retiring assassin, Henry Brogan (Smith), who finds himself battling a mysterious killer that turns out to be a younger clone of himself. Henry needs to find out why he’s being targeted and who created his clone to kill him.
Directed by Ang Lee (Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain), the action thriller opened with just $20 million in domestic ticket sales over the Oct. 11-13 weekend. Then the terrible reviews began rolling in.
Critics trashed the “groundbreaking” de-aging technology and the movie’s high frame-rate that looked like the film was sped up in some places. The terrible reviews resulted in a career-worst Rotten Tomatoes score of 25 percent for Lee.
Paramount Pictures had hoped Gemini Man would pick up the slack in China, but it was upset by Angelina Jolie’s fantasy flick Maleficent: Mistress of Evil ($22.4 million).
Gemini Man finished Sunday with an underwhelming $82.2 million in foreign box office receipts.
Gemini Man faces a $75 million loss, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The production cost for Gemini Man is a staggering $240 million – including $100 million in marketing costs alone. The film was heavily marketed in television commercials, print ads and online.
Gemini Man sparked free press around the world, thanks to the de-aging technology that rendered a barely recognizable younger version of Will Smith. Did they think we forgot what he looked like in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?
The staggering marketing cost aside, Paramount and Skydance each ponied up 35 percent of the budget. The rest of the cost was split by 2 China-based companies, Alibaba and Fosun. All four companies will absorb the $75 million loss.
