"Lucky You" A Huge Bomb at the Box Office

"Lucky You", the poker movie starring Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore, tanked ridiculously at the box office this weekend, barely making more than $2 million dollars in its opening weekend.

Studio executives made many unwise decisions when it came to this movie. First, they decided to delay the release of the movie two years. Instead of releasing the movie in 2005, when people could still actually play online in the US and poker was still red-hot, they decided to release it in 2007. They would have been like making a movie about how a down and out stock trader uses his mind and trading savvy to make a billion dollars in the Internet stock era, and then releasing it in 2002 when the stock market has crashed. Just a bad idea. No one really wants to watch a movie about poker right now, when they can't really play online.

Second, why release it the same weekend as Spiderman? I know the reasoning; give adults a choice to see another movie when the kids are watching Spiderman. But why not release it while the World Series of Poker is going on, and there is a bit more interest in poker and maybe less competition at the theaters?

And third, why make a poker movie at all? Rounders, probably the best poker movie of all time, made $22.9 million at the box office and it starred two of the biggest movies stars around (Matt Damon and Edward Norton.) Just a bad idea all around.

The reviews were horrible as well. The studio executives should have reworked this movie and taken a bit of the poker out. There was about an hour of poker playing in this movie, and most casual watchers of this movie will be bored by that. But it seems to me that execs were just wanting to get this movie out, as it had been sitting on the shelf for two+ years anyways.

Based on feedback I have heard from people that I trust, I would avoid this movie at all costs. Go watch Spiderman instead.


Filed Under: Other Poker News