Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
Delgo: Worst Opening Weekend Ever
Ever heard of Delgo? We’re going to guess the answer is “no.”
Delgo is the mind-child of 36-year-old entrepreneur Marc Adler who decided that he wanted to make an animated kids film and managed to raise about $40 million for production. They started writing it in 1999 and started animating it in 2001, and this Friday, Delgo opened.
And set the record for the worst wide release ever…
The film tells the story of a teenaged boy, Delgo (voice of Freddie Prinze Jr.), of the terrestrial Lokni people on the alien planet Jhamora, and Princess Kyla (voice of Jennifer Love Hewitt), of the winged Nohrin occupiers. They fall in love and save both societies from would-be conqueror Sedessa (voice of Anne Bancroft, in her last role ever), exiled sister of the Nohrin King Zahn (voice of Louis Gossett, Jr.).
When Adler’s animated film was unable to pick up any industry buzz because it was produced in Atlanta at the unknown Fathom Studios and featured little more than a lucky list of name actors as voice, he was forced to distribute it through distributor-for-hire Freestyle Releasing who managed to push it onto 2,160 screens this Friday.
Total gross? A $511,920 opening weekend. That’s $237 per screen, per day. At about 5 showings per day at average ticket price (around $6.88 in 2007), that’s less than three people at each showing.
That’s not even mentioning the horrible reviews it’s been getting. 16% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 31 professional reviews, whereas it received a 52% rating from the Rotten Tomato community and a score of 28 on Metacritic based on 9 reviews.
So, you might have missed Delgo, but if you’re not about high-drama or Jim Carrey movies this weekend, maybe you could give it a boost. Bring 2 friends to stand up to Hollywood control!
Or, you know, don’t. For all we know, it really is bad.
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