Spielberg’s $140 Million Children’s Film Flops Badly

Steven Spielberg needs no introduction. He’s a Hollywood icon and rightly so, but even that doesn’t guarantee success every single time. His latest film – an adaptation of Ronald Dahl’s children’s novel The BFG – which cost $140 million to make has flopped badly at the box office. It has only made $19.6 million in domestic sales in its opening weekend box office returns. In case you’re wondering, The BFG stands for “big, friendly giant.”

According to the Associated Press and the New York Times, The BFG only brought in $3.9 million through international sales, granted that the movie has so far opened only in Australia and Russia aside from North America.

The BFG was scheduled to open on Friday, July 1st because the Independence Day holiday has fallen on a Monday this year which has resulted in a long weekend for the adults, the kids are already off from school due to summer break.

Even though it was a long weekend, it didn’t do much to help The BFG’s fortunes. It flopped in comparison to Pixar’s Finding Dory which is ruling the box office for the third consecutive week. The Finding Nemo sequel brought in $41.9 million this weekend – its third – as opposed to The BFG’s opening weekend take of $19.5 million.

Despite the fact that its box office performance has been less than stellar, the critics haven’t been too harsh on The BFG, so its fortunes may improve. Perhaps it might turn out to be one of those rare cases that flop at the box office but win it big with the DVD release.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: Entertainment