Kevin Spacey’s “Billionaire Boys Club” made $126 on opening day. That’s not a typo

By Adam EpsteinAugust 19, 2018

If you’re reading this, you probably didn’t go see Kevin Spacey’s new movie, Billionaire Boys Club, at the theater this weekend.

How do we know this? Well, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the film made $126 when it opened across 10 theaters in the US on Aug. 17. One hundred and twenty six. Dollars. In other words, the film grossed about $12 per theater. That’s roughly the price of one movie ticket in the US nowadays. So, in total, approximately 10 actual human beings paid to see Billionaire Boys Club in a movie theater when it came out on Friday. We’re guessing you weren’t one of them.

Based on the real life 1980s social club of the same name, Billionaire Boys Club was one of the last films Spacey completed before a number of sexual assault allegations against the actor came to light in 2017. Since then, Spacey was fired from his long-standing role in Netflix’s House of Cards and hastily replaced in Ridley Scott’s 2017 J. Paul Getty film, All the Money in the World, by the Canadian actor Christopher Plummer. Netflix also canceled the release of a film about Gore Vidal, which starred Spacey as the famed writer.

In June, film distributor Vertical Entertainment announced it would go ahead with a limited theatrical release of Billionaire Boys Club despite the allegations, citing the work of the other actors and crew members on the film. “We don’t condone sexual harassment on any level and we fully support victims of it,” Vertical said in a statement. “At the same time, this is neither an easy nor insensitive decision to release this film in theaters, but we believe in giving the cast, as well as hundreds of crew members who worked hard on the film, the chance to see their final product reach audiences.”

The film only opened in select theaters this weekend after a video-on-demand release on July 17. Most films that are released on-demand prior to arriving in theaters don’t make much money at the box office—but the $126 of Billionaire Boys Club is virtually unheard of. (A 2015 film starring Shia LaBeouf made just £7—the equivalent of a single ticket—when it opened in one theater in the UK simultaneously with an video-on-demand release.) As tiny as the audience for Billionaire Boys Club may be, it’s possible that the film will be the last time anyone at all will see the disgraced actor on screen. And, like that, he’s gone.