By 
Project Hail Mary is an unqualified success, right? It has closed in on $323 million, topping the box office for two weekends in a row with small drops, and performing ahead of projections. It is Amazon MGM Studios’ best opening to date, and is being reviewed strongly. So all is right in the world? Wrong.
Originally stated to have cost $175 million, a new report over at Puck News confirms what we talked about a couple of weeks ago here at LMO. The actual figure was $248 million, and in order to turn a profit, it needs an extended run in theaters.
It may look like a massive success, but it needs to sustain this just to break even.
The new production cost apparently comes from an internal Amazon document. After a fairly clear couple of weeks with the box office largely to itself, big challenges are on the horizon, not least the Easter break and the Super Mario Galaxy movie.
The fact that Amazon MGM’s most successful theatrical release to date may not even break even sounds crazy, but it shines a light into a much darker place for Hollywood right now. Outside the occasional, runaway phenomenon, the huge returns simply aren’t there in movie theaters anymore, and this is compounded by the fact that big, FX-driven and publicity-heavy movies cost just too damn much to make in Hollywood these days.
Accountants will be looking hungrily eastwards, towards things like Godzilla Minus One looking as good as it did on $15 million, and the kind of thoughts that will be forming in their heads are nothing but bad news to the American domestic industry.
The post HAIL MARY Charge Masks Hollywood Problem appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
