Elizabeth Banks Takes ‘Walk of Shame’ at the Box Office
The Elizabeth Banks-starrer “Walk of Shame” lived up to its name during its opening weekend at the box office.
Focus Features’ raunchy comedy grossed a dismal $38,000 from 51 locations this past week giving the pic, which cost $15 million to produce, a dismal per-screen average of $780.
The film’s simultaneous VOD release may be proving more popular than the theatrical run — Focus pointed out that the film started very strong on iTunes and shot up to no. 1 in 24 hours.
“The limited theatrical run was part of an integrated and simultaneous release on VOD and PPV,” a Focus spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday.
“Walk of Shame” had the lowest per-screen average of all new specialty releases, far behind Fox Searchlight’s period piece “Belle,” which made $107,000 from just four theaters in Los Angeles and New York City. It’s unlikely Focus will choose to expand the film much after those B.O. results.
The comedy is co-financed by FilmDistrict and Lakeshore, and came to Focus when it absorbed FilmDistrict in January. It was originally slated for release last September then changed multiple times (from March 14 to April 25 to May 2).
The romcom was likely hurt by negative word-of-mouth after being panned by critics. “Walk of Shame” has a 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “Watching the redoubtable Elizabeth Banks try to breathe life into the stillborn farce ‘Walk of Shame’ is like watching a team of paramedics perform CPR on the corpse of Ulysses S. Grant,” Variety‘s Scott Foundas wrote in his review.
Although Banks has had hits with roles in “The Lego Movie,” “The Hunger Games” franchise and “Pitch Perfect” (she also delivered memorable performances in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Role Models”), this is her first leading role in some time.
James Marsden and Gillian Jacobs also star in the movie from writer-director Steven Brill. It follows an aspiring reporter whose dreams of becoming a network news anchor are put in jeopardy after a one-night stand leaves her stranded in Los Angeles.
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