The Last Voyage Of The Demeter's UK Release Has Been Delayed Indefinitely
Chapter 7 of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" documents the strange arrival of the Demeter at the English seaside town of Whitby. The crew have disappeared and the captain's corpse is gruesomely lashed to the helm. It's not the safest of landings, but at least the Demeter made it to England.
The same can't be said for André Øvredal's adaptation of this chapter, "The Last Voyage of the Demeter," which was set to arrive in U.K. theaters this week until it quietly disappeared from the release slate. UK cinema chain Cineworld confirmed that the film's release has been "delayed indefinitely." The movie released last week in the United States and had a dismal opening weekend, but its UK delay isn't solely down to a poor box office forecast. According to a July 20 report by Deadline, UK distributor eOne is completely shuttering its UK theatrical operations. Days later, parent company Hasbro announced that eOne is being sold to Lionsgate for $500 million, with the deal expected to close by the end of the year.
This sale announcement was preceded by multiple rounds of layoffs that, according to Deadline, impacted about 20% of eOne's staff. It looks like "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" is an unfortunate victim of the sale; Lionsgate has its own UK distribution arm, so eOne's would have become defunct anyway after the acquisition.
Getting caught up in a big company buyout can result in major delays, as we saw with Disney's acquisition of (much of) 21st Century Fox. Using the Disney deal as a template, this could go a couple of ways. Lionsgate UK might shelve "Demeter" and it could end up being sold to a different distributor (à la "Sound of Freedom"). Or, once all the paperwork has been signed, Lionsgate UK could eventually organize a theatrical release (à la "The New Mutants"). Either way, Brits are probably in for a long wait.
The Demeter has been shipwrecked in other countries, too
It's not just British horror fans who have been left bereft. "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" was co-produced by Indian studio Reliance Entertainment, which had a theatrical release in India planned for August. However, like the crew of the Demeter, that release date has eerily disappeared, and it's unclear how or when the movie will be released in India.
Staggered international releases are unfortunately common in the horror genre, where distribution rights tend to be sold to different buyers country-by-country. In Spain, for example, "El último viaje del Demeter" is set to be released by Diamond Films, whose website only says that it's "próximamente" (coming soon), with no specific release date info.
This haphazard approach isn't just frustrating for international moviegoers; it also puts a serious dampener on horror movies' box office potential. Last year, Zach Cregger's "Barbarian" grossed more than $40 million at the domestic box office, but scarcely a tenth of that from overseas markets. It released in only a handful of countries outside the United States, and didn't make it to UK cinemas until three days after it had already landed on streaming and VOD in the US (and, by extension, on pirate movie websites everywhere else in the world).
Given the weak returns for "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" at the domestic box office, strong overseas ticket sales are the one thing that could have saved this pricey $45 million production from being a total box office bomb. Now, it looks like this ship is heading straight for the rocks.