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Vidgame adaptation "BloodRayne" has apparently turned out to be a debacle for new indie distrib Romar. Company didn't report grosses or return calls, but word from sources is that it came in at around $1.2 million. After promising to play 1,915 theaters Thursday, pic ended up on 985. Word is that exhibs received hundreds of prints that they didn't order and refused to play. Per play average looks to be a little over $1,000.

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A projectionist from UltraStar Cinemas has revealed to Shacknews a rather huge error made with the distribution of Uwe Boll's latest cinematic endeavor, the BloodRayne adaptation featuring such well-regarded thespians as Ben Kingsley and Michael Madsen. The UltraStar employee explained that when he got into work last week, he noticed that the theater had received a copy of BloodRayne. This seemed odd because his particular theater generally shows films aimed more at the arthouse set. "I didn't want to build this and put it in my theater," he said, so he checked up with UltraStar higher-ups. It turns out that a computer error resulted in the print being sent to 5,500 more theaters nationwide than was intended. "The computer that placed the order, instead of selecting just the correct theatres, it also selected 5,500 additional theaters, so they made that many extra copies." Whoops.

I asked how much each print costs, and he said that in total, it costs about $5,000 to have each set of reels delivered to a theater, meaning that as a very rough estimate the total costs incurred may be upwards of $27 million. "And that's 27 million that didn't go into production, didn't go into marketing, it's just expenditure that's sitting there," he said. "I mean, I know Ben Kingsley was in Ghandi, but nobody gets to just throw away that much money for nothing."

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that, according to Variety, the film is only showing on 985 screens, just over half of the original target of 1,900--and that's separate from the thousands of accidental extra copies. Now, the film is already millions in the hole and it earned only $1.2 million during its opening weekend, failing to place it in the top ten. Uwe Boll has had a lot of second chances, but might this spell the beginning of the end for the self-described misunderstood director?

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A projectionist from UltraStar Cinemas has revealed to Shacknews

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"The computer that placed the order, instead of selecting just the correct theatres, it also selected 5,500 additional theaters, so they made that many extra copies." Whoops.

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After reading a FilmJerk.com piece that suggested that the release of Bloodrayne was in trouble already (it launched today) and that its first-time-out distributor, Romar Entertainment might sink with it, I called up Romar to see what they had to say.

I spoke to Jim Schramm (Founder, CEO, and President of the company) about the situation with the 3-month-old company that offers to handle distribution, marketing, and publicity for indie filmmakers for just 20% or so of the rentals. Schramm, who has partnered on the company with actor Billy Zane and his distribution VP Rizza Magsayo, is an affable enough guy and was very positive about the future for both Bloodrayne and Romar.

Mr. Schramm acknowledged that the original release plan for a 2000 screen release was reduced to just 985 playdates this weekend when in recent days, some of the major chains reduced the number of screens they were willing to give the action thriller. As FilmJerk reported, many prints went to theaters that weren’t playing the film. But according to Schramm, this was because Romar struck 1600 prints and still hope to expand to 1600 screens in an expansion next weekend. In addition, they expect to take the film to Canada on 500 screens on February 3.

Schram says that Romar has spent $22 million in P&A on Bloodrayne, including four thousand 30-second TV spot buys and one thousand in-theater ad buys at AMC and Regal Theaters.

That said, Schramm and Magsayo did book this movie themselves. They are in the process of hiring an experienced booker in the immediate future. And given that Schramm says Romar has 15 more films awaiting distribution, they better hurry up.

In the meanwhile, with its 985 screens, Bloodrayne ranks #17 on Rentrak as of 2pm today.

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$22 million in marketing costs?!
 

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Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 01-11-2006, 02:24 AM:
 
We got it too, but the film was never booked. I think it is still sitting up in the booth right now, as our people did not know what to do with it yet.

AJG
 

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Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 01-11-2006, 03:26 AM:
 
We-along with a bunch of other theatres in my company in this area-also got a print though we were not booked for it.
 

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Posted by Matt Whitney (Member # 2909) on 01-11-2006, 11:50 AM:
 
We received a print as well, and we're a second-run theatre!! It was picked up on Monday.
 

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Posted by Jarryd Beard (Member # 2543) on 01-14-2006, 10:41 PM:
 
We got it and we weren't booked. According to the DM, every theatre in our chain received the print; none were booked to show it. Something about a Regal Cinemas deal that upset our chain from booking it.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-15-2006, 12:06 AM:
 
It's down to 1 late evening show a day here already. It'll be gone next week.
 

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Posted by Alan Dallas (Member # 2537) on 01-15-2006, 03:56 AM:
 
We played it for 1 whole week. It did so poor we moved it mid week to a smaller house to accomodate the higher numbers of Narnia(we're still running 2 copies of that).

Guess I have to call TES to come get this POS and shove it up Uwe Bolls ass. God I hate that guy.
 

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Posted by Frank Dubrois (Member # 3042) on 01-18-2006, 04:48 PM:
 
Sell it on Ebay...send them the proceeds back rather than the film. I'm sure they'd appreciate it.
 

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Posted by Ryan Navaroli (Member # 3477) on 02-05-2006, 08:53 PM:
 
I was thinking of offering 50 bucks to whoever distributed this film to help them cut their losses. And just so I could have a 35mm print of my own... even though it would be so sad.
 

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Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 02-05-2006, 11:16 PM:
 
I can't get them to pick it up. We showed it one week and it's been broke down ever since. Not the first print to be abandoned here. I have a print of "Mickey" that was actually given to me after we showed it.
 

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Posted by Jarryd Beard (Member # 2543) on 02-21-2006, 07:17 PM:
 
After sitting in the theatre for weeks, our print has finally be picked up, completely unopened and never touched. We were told by upper management not to schedule a pickup with Technicolor. They finally took it on their own.
 

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Posted by Paul Van Dusen (Member # 3640) on 02-22-2006, 01:07 AM:
 
Yeah, we got it too. It was extremely hilarious as we're a discount house. I called the Carmike booker and I was met with a "damnit, that's the fourth one today!", and I called at 11am.
 

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Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 02-28-2006, 09:28 PM:
 
Here is a link to an interview with Uwe Boll..

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62899

I wont include the entire articl but here is a nice quote:

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However, he (Uwe Boll) concedes, as far as BloodRayne goes, which arrived in American cinemas last month, "I cannot say that it was a big success in the movie theatres. I tried it with a new theatrical distribution company, and they were not able to lock in all the theatres - that was the biggest problem we had. We were scheduled to go out on 2000 screens, and then we came out on 930 screens, and only shit screens, so it didn't work out.

"Now we are counting on the DVD release - I'm sure that on DVD it will sell very well."

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Sounds like he hold a lot of respect to movie theaters. If you read the entire interview it is pretty funny on just how he see himself and his movies.
 

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