Dragonfly
Release Date:
February 22, 2002
A supernatural thriller with a $75 million budget, Dragonfly is already being compared to The Sixth Sense, thanks to its unique plot twist.
Kevin Costner received a $15 million salary to play the grief-stricken doctor who becomes fixated on the idea that his late wife is attempting to contact him through the near-death experiences of his patients. This obsession leads him on a journey to the rainforests of Venezuela, where he goes to dangerous extremes to find the answers he seeks.
Tom Shadyac, who has previously seen success with Patch Adams and Liar, Liar, directs the film. Newcomers Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson penned the story, which Variety once called “one of the best unmade scripts in Hollywood.” Rewrites were handled by David Seltzer (The Omen, Prophecy).
Originally scheduled for a fall 2001 release, Dragonfly was pushed back to January 2002 in mid-2001, followed by a small move to February. A number of supernatural thrillers have seen success in recent years with no regard to trending for date of release, and since Universal and Spyglass have so much invested, I would anticipate a strong marketing campaign with emphasis on the plot twist. (Kim Hollis/BOP)
February 18, 2002
It now appears that the more accurate comparison can be made to The Mothman Prophecies, the mildly successful Richard Gere film that is currently in release. In fact, the similarities between the two movies are paralleled only by the similarity between their lead actors. The Mothman Prophecies had a decent per screen average of $4,889 and did reasonably well considering the time of year and the low screen count. This would normally be good news for Dragonfly but I believe Dragonfly will be hurt by the fact that the advertising is leaning more towards the supernatural label than to the thriller label.
Some mystery is built up around the movie but it is the same kind of mystery that is built around an episode of Touched By An Angel. With the absence of the "thriller" aspect, the movie could have a difficult time finding an audience, especially seeing as how there's very little romance in the film. It is important to note, though, that if anybody can pull this off it's Kevin Costner. His Field Of Dreams seems to share some aspects of this film and he might be as fitting to this genre as Eddie Murphy is to comedies. Costner has seen his share of moderate success with similarly somber films such as For Love Of The Game and Message In A Bottle, though if Dragonfly performs as well as those two, the word "surprise" would definitely be fitting.
Now that the Olympics are in full swing, it is highly unlikely that Dragonfly will be severely affected by them. For every argument made that people are staying home to watch the games, an equal argument can be made that more people are watching television and seeing the Dragonfly ads. This should have no bearing to the film's box office. More importantly, the ad push behind it has been moderate to barely existent so expect it to have a difficult go of it over its first weekend. (Walid Habboub/BOP)
Comparison films for Dragonfly |
Title |
Date |
Opening |
Adjusted Opening |
Screens |
PSA |
Adj PSA |
Total BO |
Adjusted Total |
Mult |
| Unbreakable |
11/22/00 | 30.33 |
33.93 |
2708 |
11202.00 |
12054.1 |
94.92 |
106.18 |
3.13 |
| What Lies Beneath |
7/21/00 | 29.70 |
33.22 |
2813 |
10558.00 |
11361.1 |
155.37 |
173.81 |
5.23 |
| Sixth Sense, The |
8/6/99 | 26.68 |
31.79 |
2161 |
12346.00 |
14095.8 |
293.50 |
349.76 |
11.00 |
| Stigmata |
9/10/99 | 18.31 |
21.82 |
2899 |
6316.00 |
7211.2 |
50.03 |
59.62 |
2.73 |
| Others, The |
8/10/01 | 14.09 |
15.03 |
1678 |
8397.00 |
8619.9 |
96.08 |
102.54 |
6.82 |
| Thirteen Days |
1/12/01 | 9.78 |
10.43 |
2029 |
4820.00 |
4948.0 |
34.57 |
36.89 |
3.01 |
| Stir of Echoes, A |
9/10/99 | 5.81 |
6.92 |
1888 |
3077.00 |
3513.1 |
21.13 |
25.18 |
3.64 |
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