Last weekend was an especially brutal one for new releases, with Fright Night, Conan the Barbarian and Spy Kids: All the Time in the World all performing well below expectations. But numerous indies and other limited releases had it even worse: Renny Harlin's 5 Days of War grossed less than $7,000 on two screens. The Patrick Dempsey/Ashley Judd heist romcom Flypaper barely broke $1,000 in a pair of theaters. But something called The Worst Movie Ever! had arguably the worst movie opening ever: $11.
According to Box Office Mojo, the film debuted on one screen and appears to have had one single viewer. A scan of the film's Facebook page reveals that screen to have been at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles, where WME! had two midnight screenings on Friday and Saturday -- only one of which was actually attended by anybody, evidently. "I just received the box office numbers from LA - ugh," wrote writer-producer-director-star Glenn Berggoetz in a post on Monday. His viewer's identity isn't clear, but signs point to young co-star Christine Mascolo, who had her photograph snapped in front of the theater over the weekend. (Berggoetz, who is based in Denver, has not yet responded to Movieline's request for comment.) The resulting $11 gross rivals the infamous $20 earned by the Katherine Heigl bomb Zzyax Road, which screened to exactly six people over a week in 2007.
So what exactly is The Worst Movie Ever!? Let's start with the trailer:
Huh. At least it made its money back, I guess.
Worst Movie Ever!'s IMDB synopsis adds a little more coarse perspective: "A robot alien. Angst-ridden teens. Cleavage-wielding soul takers. A dark overlord. A cross-dressing retard. A pregnant 14-year-old cougar. Macho scientists. Santa Claus. Yeah, this movie has it all." In an interview in June with a newspaper in Fort Wayne, Ind. (where native son Berggoetz was screening his action spoof To Die Is Hard), the filmmaker elaborated further:
The Worst Movie EVER! is a little bit harder to summarize. ... Boltar the robot alien is sent down to Earth to destroy. He decides to wreak havoc on a particular neighborhood. In this neighborhood are two angry teenagers (played by two actors with a combined age of 108 years at the time of the shoot); one of the teen's mentally challenged identical twin brother; a 14-year old cougar and her 10-year old boyfriend, who has gotten her pregnant; a cleavage-wielding soul-taker who is determined to steal the soul of the mentally challenged teen; and two geeky scientists who try to turn macho and kill Boltar to save the day.
Yes, the plot is a complete mess, which is part of the point of the film being awful. Maybe the tagline will help: "It may be the worst movie ever, but it's the best sci-fi/action/drama/horror/musical you've ever seen."
Maybe! Only one person in Los Angeles knows for sure. Meanwhile, the Alamo Drafthouse in Winchester, Va., has booked Worst Movie Ever! to screen next Wednesday, Aug. 31, at 11:10 p.m. "If you're anywhere close to the area (it's about an hour west of Washington, DC), please attend!" wrote Berggoetz today in another Facebook post. Indeed, please do! You know where to send your reactions afterward.