Halle Berry Exceeds Projections As 'Kidnap' Rakes In $10M

DEADLINE: While diversity was present on the marquee with three films starring black actors, Aviron is celebrating a win with its Halle Berry popcorn movie Kidnap, which is estimated to have pulled in $10.2M, according to Aviron. The film, which was shot three years ago and buried beneath Relativity’s financial woes, was rescued by David Dinerstein’s new film label for an estimated $3M and will profit toward the end. Lotus Entertainment handled foreign pre-sales on Kidnap and originally got the project off the ground.

“We’re extremely pleased with the weekend results for Kidnap,” said Aviron chief David Dinerstein this morning. “As Aviron’s first release, it surpassed industry expectations. Positive audience response and the summer play yet to come should result in a solid total box office return.”

There wasn’t any fat on the bones in regard to the number of theaters Kidnap rolled into, which numbered 2,378 venues. Aviron specifically targeted African-American, Hispanic and female moviegoers with a P&A spend in the teens, versus what many say was $40M for Detroit. Again, two very different movies, in that Kidnap is pure escapist entertainment. The pic played broad to Caucasians (46%), African-Americans (25%) and Hispanic audiences (22%). Females under 25 (21%) loved Kidnap the most at 85% positive, while females over 25 (42%) gave the Luis Prieto-directed movie a 73% positive.

Kidnap was the little engine that could this weekend. Another feather in Aviron’s cap this summer was that they handled the marketing on Entertainment Studios’ $43.1M-grossing genre sleeper 47 Meters Down.