After taking in a further £6.75 million last weekend, box office smash Beauty and the Beast probably won't be looking over its shoulder at Shia LaBeouf's latest film Man Down: it made just £7. No, we haven't missed off the million. That’s the price of just one ticket.
But to be fair, there is a reason. The war thriller starring Gary Oldman, Jai Courtney and Kate Mara was only screened at a single theatre, the Reel Cinema in Burnley, as part of promotions around its digital release. Having said that, Man Down's release in North America only took in $450,000, which in movie terms is... not great.
So what's the problem? And why aren’t more cinemas taking on the film? Well, on first release it wasn’t reviewed well. At all. It currently holds a 15% raking on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Robey saying the movie about a Marine returning from Afghanistan is a "bomb site of a film”.
The Burnley cinema told the BBC Man Down had quadrupled its sales by Wednesday, and RadioTimes.com can confirm that 48 of 78 seats are still available for its final screening this afternoon. That means that the film's total estimated UK takings add up to £238.
Man Down wasn’t the only film to open in just one cinema this weekend. According to figures from the BFI, Indian Telugu-language sports flick Guru and cult Candian horror film The Void were both shown on a single screen, grossing £17 and £1,163, respectively. Which no, doesn't make things look much better for Man Down...
