Glitter
Release Date:
September 21, 2001
MTV meets Mariah Carey in a dramatic story of an aspiring singer who gets her big break and falls in love with the DJ that helps make it all happen. Expect a heavily-laden musical soundtrack, folks. Carey will reportedly go on tour after the film is released (surprise!).
Obviously, the PG-13-rated Glitter will have the greatest appeal to fans of Mariah Carey and her brand of music. How much of an appeal will exist outside of that core audience remains to be seen. It's a fair bet that MTV will help provide a boost with its effective targeted advertising and marketing tie-ins that the network has demonstrated works with its viewers.
While Glitter is not being offered as an autobiography of Carey's life and career track, its basic premise is similar to 1997's Selena, which managed an $11.6 million opening weekend in March, on its way to a total box-office run of $35.4 million.
Glitter is unlikely to make a big splash, but it should out-draw the teen drama O that opens the same weekend, and could even finish atop the other August 31st debut of teen horror flick, Jeepers Creepers. (Cal Hubbard/BOP)
August 6, 2001
Not surprisingly, Mariah Carey's personal problems have forced the studio's hand and they have pushed the release of this title back to the third week of September. While the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity might have applied here, it's more likely that if Ms. Carey can conquer her personal demons over the next month, she can much more successfully publicize the movie as a triumph over adversity. Stay tuned for the next chapter in this story. (David Mumpower/BOP)
Box Office Autopsy
How much fun is it to clean up after the kids when they've been playing with glitter? 20th Century Fox had the same fun time cleaning up a big miss following the super-flop that was Mariah Carey's Glitter. Rarely can a single film knock a performer so far down, but this film did. Mariah was outsville for almost 2 years as she tried to recover from this travesty. In terms of free movie marketing, there is such a thing as bad publicity; but it wasn't just bad for Glitter, it was god-awful.
Walter Chaw at Film Freak Central called Glitter "Destined for bad cinema lore" with the likes of Battlefield Earth, Ishtar and The Postman. Glitter was shot over the months of July and August 2000, and was originally scheduled for April 2001. It was obviously bumped, but at first only to the end of August. The death knell came when Fox chose to move Glitter very late in the game to September 21, 2001 - Fox blamed Mariah's "health" issues for the delay, but I think everyone and their dog knew what was coming. When the film debuted, word of mouth was nasty, and critic reviews were even worse. RottenTomatoes gathered 75 reviews, but could find only four positive notices. I think Kevin Thomas from the LA Times must have had a few before reviewing this movie, he was the only critic in RT's "Cream of the Crop" section to provide a positive review.
The film opened outside of the top ten during a slower than usual weekend. The comedy(?) musical(?) grossed $2.4 million from a very slim 1,202 venues (yeah, sounds like Fox loved this one!). The crapfest cost Fox $22 million, and made only $4.3 million; the scary thing about the $4.3 million total is that the film made more than half of that opening weekend. How's that for front-loaded?
The company lurking in the background on this one is Sony. Sony purchased the international rights to the flop, and made a whopping $0.4 million for their effort.
The fallout from Glitter mostly involved Mariah Carey. After getting out of rehab, Mariah quickly changed record companies, hopping from Virgin Records to Def Jam in the blink of a glittered eye. (John Hamann)
Comparison films for Glitter |
Title |
Date |
Opening |
Adjusted Opening |
Screens |
PSA |
Adj PSA |
Total BO |
Adjusted Total |
Mult |
| Bring it On |
8/25/00 | 17.36 |
19.42 |
2380 |
7294.00 |
7848.8 |
68.25 |
76.35 |
3.93 |
| Coyote Ugly |
8/4/00 | 17.32 |
19.37 |
2653 |
6528.00 |
7024.6 |
60.76 |
67.97 |
3.51 |
| Bodyguard, The |
11/27/92 | 16.61 |
24.13 |
1717 |
9674.00 |
13520.3 |
121.95 |
177.19 |
5.00 |
| She's All That |
1/29/99 | 16.07 |
19.15 |
2222 |
7232.00 |
8257.0 |
63.32 |
75.45 |
3.94 |
| Moulin Rouge |
6/1/01 | 13.72 |
14.64 |
2279 |
6019.00 |
6178.8 |
57.22 |
61.07 |
4.12 |
| Grease (re-issue) |
3/27/98 | 12.71 |
16.34 |
2064 |
6156.00 |
7613.0 |
27.86 |
35.81 |
2.19 |
| Selena |
3/21/97 | 11.62 |
15.26 |
1850 |
6281.00 |
7936.8 |
35.36 |
46.45 |
3.04 |
| House Party 3 * |
1/14/94 | 7.25 |
10.71 |
848 |
8550.00 |
12154.4 |
19.19 |
28.36 |
2.65 |
| High School High |
10/25/96 | 6.31 |
8.60 |
2146 |
2940.00 |
3857.9 |
20.99 |
28.63 |
3.33 |
| CB4 |
3/12/93 | 6.12 |
8.91 |
1204 |
5083.00 |
7121.1 |
17.64 |
25.69 |
2.88 |
| House Party 2 |
10/25/91 | 6.03 |
8.63 |
1165 |
5176.00 |
7130.8 |
19.44 |
27.84 |
3.02 |
| House Party |
3/9/90 | 4.61 |
6.58 |
520 |
8865.00 |
12184.1 |
26.39 |
37.70 |
5.72 |
| Josie and the Pussycats |
4/13/01 | 4.56 |
4.86 |
2556 |
1784.00 |
1831.4 |
14.25 |
15.20 |
2.79 |
| Get Over It |
3/9/01 | 4.13 |
4.40 |
1742 |
2373.00 |
2436.0 |
11.50 |
12.27 |
2.78 |
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