14 DAY TRIAL // Uma Thurman’s latest movie, the comedy about single parenthood “Motherhood,” almost set a new record for the lowest box office grossing for the opening weekend ever in British theaters. The film made only £88 during its opening weekend, a situation not even those involved in the project can’t begin to understand, Times Online says, since it means only 11 people went to see it.
Though the film fared rather disastrously in the US as well where it opened last year, the UK opening was well below par. As also noted above, not even those with good knowledge of it can explain how this came to be since, as they see it, “Motherhood” is “pretty decent.” Moreover, although critics were harsh about it, they didn’t quite kill it after screening, which is more that one can say about certain movies, which still went on to make hundreds of millions at the box office.
“It could go down in British cinema history as the great Easter turkey. A film about a stressed-out mother, featuring the Hollywood superstar Uma Thurman, has been withdrawn from show after just 11 cinema goers turned up to see it in its opening weekend. Motherhood managed to gross £9 from the lone viewer who turned up on the debut Sunday. Takings for the full weekend hit £88. The figures mean the film outflopped even its dismal performance in America, where it took just over £40,000 when it opened last September,” Times Online says.
“Thurman, 40, has missed out on the accolade of Britain’s biggest flop, however. In 2007, the film My Nikifor, about the Polish artist Nikifor Krynicki, took £7 on its launch. But that was a small independent effort rather than a £3m Hollywood production. Motherhood also has appearances by Minnie Driver and Jodie Foster. Barry Norman, the critic, said it was ‘astonishing’ that only 11 people could be bothered to go and see a film starring Thurman. ‘The reviews were very poor indeed but that alone isn’t enough to explain it’,” the same publication goes on to say.
Apparently, the movie studio hopes to recoup some of the losses it suffered in theatres through the DVD release, though it’s safe to say that the film is a major flop. Moreover, the film’s producer Jana Edelbaum is saying for the same publication that Metrodome, which was responsible for marketing “Motherhood,” will have to answer a series of questions about the advertising it got in the UK.