The erotic thriller meets wacky high concept feature “Serenity” opened to a dismal $4.4 million at the box-office this past weekend, the worst wide-release opening weekend in the careers of both its stars Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway.
The negative reviews didn’t help, but Deadline is now reporting that the two actors and filmmaker Steven Knight are very unhappy with how the film performed and are putting the blame on Aviron Pictures and their lack of marketing for the movie. The trade says Aviron effectively dumped the film into cinemas with no real publicity and advertising spend and only a handful of TV spots aired in small markets at odd times.
Aviron has defended its stance, saying with the adult-skewing drama proving a disaster with both critics and audiences (23% on Rotten Tomatoes and a D+ CinemaScore), they made a budget-conscious business decision to pull back on the marking spend.
“Serenity” is now in cinemas everywhere.
