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Prince of Persia doesn't pop at box office

$200 million big-budget production of Ubisoft game takes in only $37.8 million over three-day holiday weekend.

The big-screen version of Ubisoft and Disney's Prince of Persia bombed at the box office over the weekend, pulling in $37.8 million in the US and Canada--hardly a princely sum for a film with an estimated $200 million budget. According to the Los Angeles Times, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time finished third in an altogether anemic Memorial Day box-office weekend, in which the four-day window saw ticket sales of $186 million--the lowest since 2001.

The LA Times reports that overall ticket sales during the weekend were 23.4 million--as tabulated by Hollywood.com--the lowest tally since 1993. The period's top performer was Shrek Forever After, which augmented its opening haul of $71.3 million with an additional $55.7 million. Sex and the City 2, the second film based on the Sarah Jessica Parker-led HBO series, brought in $51.4 million following its Thursday bow.

The prince resembled more of a pauper at the box office last weekend.

The prince resembled more of a pauper at the box office last weekend.

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal as parkour-enthused Prince Dastan, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film approximately follows 2003's Ubisoft-developed action adventure of the same name. Directed by Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Donnie Brasco), the film features a script coauthored by Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner.

Prince of Persia's tepid opening does not portend well for Ubisoft's expectations for the franchise's celluloid aspirations. In November, CEO Yves Guillemot estimated that the film franchise could trump that of Disney and Bruckheimer's Pirates of the Caribbean films, the first three of which had brought in $2.7 billion dollars at the time.

Bruckheimer's magic touch has not extended to Prince of Persia, however. The LA Times notes that Prince of Persia's opening is the worst for a big-budget picture on Memorial Day since DreamWorks' animated film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron in 2002. However, the film has enjoyed a measure of international success, grossing $87.5 million across the 19 territories in which it was playing through the weekend.

402 Comments

  • Akabuu

    Posted Oct 20, 2011 4:07 pm GMT

    prince of persia is a violent (at least i see it as violent) game series, disney should have had NEVER FUKING EVER LAYED ONE FINGER on prince of persia's film rights! disney makes movies for kids, decapitations is not for kids either is cutting body parts, so by being disney making this movie, it makes the movie technically different from the game! so what im saying is: Disney Ruins Game's Movies
    can u imagine what a God of War movie would be like if Disney was producing it XD (not funny)

  • Epidipnis

    Posted Jan 22, 2011 6:31 am GMT

    Just watched the movie on Blu-Ray, and it was enjoyable.
    Parts of the beginning were too much like cutscenes from a videogame, with the obligatory parkour shots, but once it got going, you could look past the silly ostriches and stuff.
    Better than Transformers, and as fun as Lara Croft.

  • Maverickx25

    Posted Jan 12, 2011 6:24 am GMT

    I think if it weren't for shoddy editing, a pointless cameo and plot thread concerning Alfred Molina and ostriches and better writers, it would have been really good. Instead, it was just alright. Definitely enjoyed it more than RE4, good God that was bad. I felt like I got sodomized and had to pay $18 to see it.

  • spOOoOOn

    Posted Aug 10, 2010 6:41 pm GMT

    that's pretty amazing seeing as the movie was pretty bad... I might even go so far as to say that budget doesn't equal quality... revolutionary.

  • DarkChamelea

    Posted Jun 28, 2010 9:48 am GMT

    I liked the movie overally, but there were few things I wasn't satisfied with - giving name to the Prince, changing female character/name, and renaming "hasheshins" (named for smoking hashish which derived today's "assasins") into "hasansins" (wtf?!). I am significantly more pissed off and disappointed with the newest game in the series, and since this is my third-time play from the beginning thanks to idiotic auto-save, I'm going to return it and request my money back.

  • hastati4

    Posted Jun 10, 2010 9:15 pm GMT

    I love PoP for the most part, but i can't help feeling like the franchise may be on its last legs. There hasn't been a great PoP since sands of time, and this movie certainly doesn't seem to be helping the situation.

    I'll bet it's because they gave him a name. I didn't like that as soon as i heard it...

  • grey_fox1984

    Posted Jun 10, 2010 1:51 pm GMT

    @GeigerdolylWodd

    Either way I doubt I'm plunking down the $10 to see this- i wasn't aware that Belle was training Jake, but at the same time i doubt there would be any complaints about the parkour in the film if Belle did the stunts himself (anyone who's seen District B13 or even Youtube'd him will agree). I didn't read roger eberts review, i just heard from a few of my friends who are also parkour runners- I just hated hearing that there is a lot of CG used in the parkour, because the realistic acrobatic movement is definitely the most amazing thing about the sport/art.

  • vortex_gw

    Posted Jun 10, 2010 10:54 am GMT

    @LordRaymond
    I'm a HUGE fan of the pirates of the caribbean. In fact curse of the black pearl is my all time favourite movie but I'm also a huge fan of the PoP games and I was DISAPPOINTED in the movie.

    @Seljek The movie has made $216,021,721 worldwide in two weeks. I guess there won't be a sequel but they will have some profit...

  • iowastate

    Posted Jun 9, 2010 11:44 pm GMT

    Casting mistake was one problem. As soon as I see Jake Gylenhaal I picture him in a diaper from that ridiculous movie Bubble Boy

    a few serious actors have made the move to comedy roles but I can't remember any comedic actor who was successful in making the move to dramatic films. Tom Hanks and Steve Martin are examples of a couple who should stick to comedy where they are great but both insist on trying drama where they are mediocre at best and....I will be polite and not say what I think of them at worst.

  • lexluis

    Posted Jun 9, 2010 8:57 pm GMT

    200 million? I can't belive this movie was that expensive

  • fearless_alive

    Posted Jun 8, 2010 10:15 pm GMT

    @Petri87
    To be honest Avatar wasn't based on the video game. The game was based on the movie and it wasn't bad, i mean the game, it just had a lot of issues. The movie was great from a technical point of view. It looked awesome. It isn't my favorite movie but it's worth a watch(I'm still a Lord of the Rings fan, nothing comes close) I didn't see the movie yet but i don't care what everyone says. I want to see it. I'm just curios that's all.

  • unbentonslaught

    Posted Jun 6, 2010 7:11 am GMT

    I shunned the prince of persia games all throughout my life and so never played the sands of time, however when I played the prince of persia game released on the ps3 I really wanted to go back and play the games I missed out on. When I heard they were making a movie based on the sands of time, I thought "Hey, that sounds cool. I should watch that." I did notice the trailer made the movie seem kinda lame, but I ignored that. I wish I didn't ignore the lameness now!

  • Petri87

    Posted Jun 6, 2010 3:36 am GMT

    It looks like most ppl commenting on this article hasn't seen the movie because the fact is that it is the best videogame movie made so far.
    Now thats not saying much and your right, I'm not saying its the best movie ever, its not a great movie but it is alot better then Transformers 2 and imo Avatar.
    Its a 3 out of 5 movie. It won't blow you away in any way, Its just another one in a long line of just good action movies, and thats a hell of a lot more then can be said about every videogame movie thats come before it.

    And don't be f***ing retarded and say Mortal Kombat was a good vg movie because it was horrible.

  • Phoenix2Raven

    Posted Jun 5, 2010 1:40 pm GMT

    This could actually have been a blockbuster but they decide to put Jake Gyllenhal as the lead which makes no sense what so ever. And it had nothing to do with him being in Brokeback, unlike some bigots on here I don't care about that stuff, it has to do with bad casting. If they had looked at the game at all, they would have seen that the lead needed to be a slim wiry Persian who could do a lot of acrobatic stuff not a bulky tan white guy. Jerry made Pirates of the Caribbean which was based on a freakin roller coaster ride so if anyone can make a game into a movie it would be him, but the minute I saw the commercials I knew it was going to be bad. Jake didn't look right in the part, not at all.

  • Jebril

    Posted Jun 4, 2010 2:36 pm GMT

    The actors blow for this movie.

  • CoRiNi

    Posted Jun 4, 2010 3:21 am GMT

    I'm very happy , this is great news , this is just to show that putting stupid looking actors like him as the prince is the worst choice ever . the Prince's face is very middle eastern , why should a brown bearded American actor take the role ? I mean , it's common sense , he's the prince of "PERSIA" , not Texas :S

  • cuchikapoor

    Posted Jun 4, 2010 3:00 am GMT

    only resident evil, Lara croft and Prince Of Persia are great movies made from games in my opinion.

  • why_we_die

    Posted Jun 4, 2010 2:35 am GMT

    even after changing the color of his eyes using GFX, the prince remained 100% american not persian , guess makeup don't do everything , huh

  • hozboo

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 10:19 pm GMT

    I was really excited for this movie, and i felt that i got my money's worth out of it. Plus I never played the original game, so give it a chance and I think you'll really enjoy yourself.

  • Ladiesman17

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 10:09 pm GMT

    I hate Movies based by Games!! or Games based by Movies!! etc. etc. damn hollytoord

  • RedReckoning

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 9:06 pm GMT

    I think we all knew this would happen...

  • BloodMist

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 7:54 pm GMT

    This movie looked like it would probably be really hit and miss, so i didn't have much interest in seeing it in the theater.This is probably what the majority consensus is, and it will more than likely actually be successful in the home market, which happens a lot more often than most realize.

  • death_dealerK

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 7:44 pm GMT

    i say give it time. I think its unfair to say a movie bombed in 3 days

  • a140lbstud

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 5:32 pm GMT

    Thats what happens when you put a Gay Cowboy as an ancient warrior.

  • Kenorv

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 5:31 pm GMT

    The next video game based movie needs to be directed by Peter Jackson and it needs to be something that can be done the way that he did LotR. So no horror movies, no shooter movies, not even an action adventure movie like PoP. I know that I'm probably going to get flamed for this but I think having Jackson direct a Warcraft trilogy based on the rise and fall of Arthas/Lich King would be something that could be successful. It would have that same fantasy genre setting that Jackson made look so amazing in the LotR trilogy. Everyone's heard of Warcraft, even if they've never played it before. So I think the name recognition alone would create more interest than any other game based movie. PoP may have been well known within the gaming community but I don't think that it was that well known outside the gaming community. If it had that name recognition outside of the gaming community then perhaps it would have fared better.

  • tsunami2311

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 4:37 pm GMT

    it looked interesting and i want to see but i want for it to hit PPV or something. On hind sight maybe the movie industry should stop making any and all game based movies cause they all suck.

    I even heard they want to restart the MK series in the movies. and we all know how those movies failed, or Bloodrayne, Hitman, Tomb Raider. The all sucked granted some less then others.

  • DemannameD

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 4:10 pm GMT

    could it be maybe because the movie looks retarded? Or maybe because no matter how cool Jake has been he did broke back mountain, which was not cool... not cool at all. Gay cowboy sand prince.... no thanks.

  • ShastyMacNasty

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 10:51 am GMT

    just so people dont keep saying theres never been a great movie based on a video game i submit that mortal kombat rocked

  • biagio55 posted Jun 3, 2010 10:14 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    biagio55

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 10:14 am GMT (hide)

    just to clarify. its not a british accent. that could be any accent from the british isles. its an ENGLISH accent. you americans are poorly informed on your accents and it pisses me off (being english) that youd call it a british accent. most ENGLISH people dont talk like that and certainly not most british person. i cant say ive ever heard an irish person speak like that for example.

  • namdar

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 9:45 am GMT

    Man you dont even have to watch the movie, the full release trailer shows almost everything great in it. Save your money !

  • Darkman2007

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 9:17 am GMT

    the problem with game based movies , is that because its based on a game, alot of people who don't play games , might dismiss it.

  • 7Deuce

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 9:12 am GMT

    Hahaa - keep doing stupid crap like DRM and see how far you get Ubisoft.

  • xerxes5678

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 9:09 am GMT

    It was a decent movie, much better than the usual video game films.

    Silent Hill is still numero uno though.

  • McDog3

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 8:34 am GMT

    Although it didn't do as well as I hoped it would, I still thoroughly enjoyed the movie. As a traceur myself I have a certain level of respect for the great realistic stunts that occur (granted, the stunt coordinator was David Belle - labeled as creator of parkour - so I would expect nothing less), rather than have it all be unrealistic acrobatics. On a side note, Prince of Persia lost out to Sex and the City 2?!? That's just sad.

  • Bigbudd0045

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 8:26 am GMT

    i thought this could make a good movie....but how about a prince and princess who at least look persian/middle eastern. The british accent thing...i get that part from sands of time, but its not hard to find iranian/arab/pakistani even indian actors who have british accents or at least can act like they do. Sorry, when i saw POP trailers all i thought was Jake Gyllenhall, they cant seem to get the video game formula right. You need to satisfy the fanboys but still make it understandable to the masses....I mean look how long it took them to get a good superhero movie down.

  • X-7

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 7:39 am GMT

    I loved this movie. It actually captured the essence of the games. Very good movie.

  • vicsrealms

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 7:13 am GMT

    It was an ok movie, it isn't a blockbuster in my opinion. I would put it in the same category as Doom, and Aliens vs Predator. Not great movies, but still a fairly fun movie to sit back and watch. Yet, its no where near the league of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars Empire Strikes Back, or Battle of Red Cliff (a couple of my all time favorite movies).

  • Sharhan96

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 6:56 am GMT

    it was released at a bad time, if they waited a week or two, it would have been a great success.

  • chandu83

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 6:22 am GMT

    Well, what can you expect?

  • basilisk100

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 5:55 am GMT

    POP is one of my favorite video games of all time but this movie adaptation is a chunk of junk. This film is a total embarrassment to the skilled and acrobatic prince and does not pay homage to the game at all, no wonder why it made that amount in returns. Hollywood directors need to leave video games alone and If ever they need to make a movie out of it.....just make it animated instead where everything is possible like the mad acrobatic skills of the prince which was not present in the boring movie. Then again, what do you expect when Disney is involved...Disney is for kids so you can't expect anything that epic. Shame on Ubisoft .

  • Tr5978

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 1:38 am GMT

    It just goes to show - 99% of movies based on games are doomed to fail even if no one KNOWS it was based on a game. Kinda sad, really.

  • DEATH775

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 1:15 am GMT

    I knew that its going to fail. But I wanted it to succeed. Oh well as long as the game is great.

  • Mr_Alexander

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 1:14 am GMT

    ooh, nice pun

  • nonfanboygamer1

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 12:27 am GMT

    I liked the ps2 pop games, as for the movie i'll rent it.

  • Nosnitsttam

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 12:10 am GMT

    i dont think i've been this bored since blair witch

  • Nosnitsttam

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 12:10 am GMT

    also this was no where near as good as the first pirates. the 2 movies are so distant in quality that it's shameful. honestly, with the same backing as PotC and National Treasure you'd think there would be some production values here. and whoever brought up Transformers 2 clearly wasnt watching the same movie i was since it gave me exactly what i wanted from a transformers movie (lots of robots blowing crap up with less of a focus on the humans this time around) its far from a masterpiece but i'd watch that again over PoP ANY DAY.

  • Nosnitsttam

    Posted Jun 3, 2010 12:02 am GMT

    the movie should have ended up on USA or TNT because thats how awful all of the effects are (except for the 2 or 3 scenes where they use the dagger). if you've seen an american action flick in the past 15 years, you've seen everything in Prince of Persia before, and those movies were much better. Also, the princes acrobatics were so underplayed, most of the movie should have featured donnie darko running along walls and doing other super-human feats (like in scenes from casino royale, or district b13. both movies were far more exciting), but he really only ends up doing the most basic things. and the 1 or 2 times he DOES do something cool, the movie ruins it with a low budget slow-mo or blur effect that makes it look lame. seriously, just play sands of time or PoP classic and you'll have way more fun and get a better story out of it (in sands of time anyway).

  • Zidaneski

    Posted Jun 2, 2010 11:19 pm GMT

    I still plan to see it. I have my free ticket ready and will most likely see tomorrow. I'll probably enjoy this movie more than Iron Man 2, which felt like Iron Man 1.5.

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