Uma Thurman's 'Motherhood' Makes $130 in UK: Biggest Film Flop?

by Jacob Zinn | March 29, 2010 at 02:54 pm

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Uma Thurman’s newest film, Motherhood, only made $130 its opening weekend in the United Kingdom, making it one of the biggest flops in cinematic history.

A mere 13 people paid $10 each to see the $5 million film—and of those 13, only 1 saw it on opening night.

Producers Fault Metrodome for Marketing Problems

Motherhood, which also stars Anthony Edwards and Minnie Driver, was screened last January at the Sundance Film Festival, but didn’t make its London premiere until March 5 of this year.

In an experiment in marketing, the film’s release was limited to one theatre: the Apollo Piccadily Circus. Despite expectations that the theatre would be packed, it was mostly empty during its cinematic run.

Producers are blaming U.K. marketing company Metrodome for not properly advertising the comedy about a stay-at-home Manhattan mom who blogs about her struggles and misses her often-working husband.

Thurman even won an award for Best Actress at the 2009 Boston Film Festival for her role in Motherhood.

Think how much crap succeeds at the cinema,” said Jana Edelbaum, 1 of the film's 11 producers. “Motherhood is not bad. It’s a very decent movie. I’ve seen movies that are not half as good.

Metrodome is defending itself and why the film was simultaneously released on multiple platforms. In February, Motherhood was released on Blu-Ray and DVD, a few weeks before its London debut. It was also released on video on demand and Pay-Per-View.

Metrodome stressed that new models of distribution are important and that, obviously, the DVD release was stronger than the theatre release.

U.S. Release of Motherhood Relatively Better

When Motherhood was released to U.S. theatres in October, it took in $50,000 its opening weekend and grossed $93,388 in its domestic run.

Surprisingly, it is not the worst film flop in Britain’s history. Zyzzxx Road, a 2006 thriller co-starring Katherine Heigl, made $30 its opening weekend from 8 moviegoers.

Even worse, My Nikifor got just one paying customer its opening weekend, though it was a small, independent film—not a 7-figure Hollywood production.

It doesn’t help that Motherhood has a score of 20% on Rotten Tomatoes and has been panned by critics.

If Carrie Bradshaw ever trades her Manolos for sneakers and starts blogging about raising children,” wrote Lou Lumenick of the New York Post, “I pray she wouldn't be as tiresome as the heroine of Katherine Dieckmann’s insufferable comedy Motherhood.