‘Twelve’ rolls snake eyes at movie theaters
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There have been any number of catastrophic movie releases this year -- ‘MacGruber,’ ‘Jonah Hex’ and ‘Extraordinary Measures’ come to mind -- but none worse than last weekend’s opening for ‘Twelve,’ a drug-dealing drama from director Joel Schumacher (‘Batman & Robin’).
Since the movie’s title contains a number, we thought we’d come up with some other digits worth considering:
1. $477. That was ‘Twelve’s’ per-screen total for its first three days in limited release in 231 locations. There was only one other film among all movies reporting box-office grosses in Variety that had a lower per-screen take, the $390 average for ‘Sex and the City 2,’ which has been in theaters for more than two months ‘Flipped,’ which had a mediocre opening weekend, garnered a per-screen average more than 10 times higher than ‘Twelve,’ with $4,983 per location.
2. 4. That was ‘Twelve’s’ Rotten Tomatoes score, one of the lowest in recent memory. The critical consensus average was lower than the marks given the critical dogs ‘The Last Airbender’ (8%), ‘Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore’ (14%) and ‘Killers’ (12%). As Times reviewer Robert Abele put it: ‘... for all the cautionary trappings inherent in a downward spiral like ‘Twelve,’ it ultimately falls victim to another kind of addict, in that Schumacher can’t keep himself from the kind of vibey camera and editing flourishes that facilitate only viewer numbness.’
3. 2. Movies that ‘Twelve’ distributor Hanover House tentatively plans to release in the coming years: Next year’s ‘Untitled Jim Henson Project,’ a biography of the Muppets creator, and 2012’s ‘Dances With Werewolves,’ a western-themed horror movie.The Arkansas-based DVD company previously has released ‘2 Dudes and a Dream,’ ‘Bobby Dogs’ and ‘Sensored.’
4. 59. The estimated average number of people who saw ‘Twelve’ in each theater location over its entire opening weekend. At least it was easy to run for the exits.
-- John Horn
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