"Even when you have two of the most recognized faces in the world in Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, if the project by all accounts, isn’t some kind of a masterpiece, it will likely become film fodder. Or, to put delicately, a wash," says one box office analyst.
In July 2014, Universal Pictures made headlines by announcing By the Sea, teaming Angelina Jolie Pitt and real-life husband Brad Pitt — two of the world's biggest stars — for the first time on the big screen together since Mr. & Mrs. Smith a decade ago.But the project wasn't an obvious fit for a major Hollywood studio, despite its star billing. The moody marital drama, the third feature directed by Jolie Pitt, is a nod to the European cinema of the 1960s and 1970s that Jolie Pitt's mother, the late actress Marcheline Bertrand, adored. Translated, it's an arthouse title about a disenchanted married couple who go on vacation in a sleepy French coastal town, and begin spying on the newlyweds staying next door. But Universal wanted to keep the filmmaker-actress in the fold after she directed last year's Unbroken, and so okayed the $10 million net budget.
But even as a prestige offering, By the Sea didn't work. Over the weekend, it debuted to $95,440 from 10 theaters in eight U.S. cities for a dismal location average of $9,544, becoming the latest fall drama to find itself shipwrecked. It's tough to find comparisons for films that launched in that number of theaters: George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck posted a location average of $38,313 when it opened in 11 theaters in 2005.