The Weinstein Company’s “Amityville: The Awakening” grossed a minuscule $742 total at 10 locations on Saturday, two weeks after the haunted house sequel began streaming for free on Google Play.
Bella Thorne, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jennifer Morrison, and Cameron Monaghan star in “Amityville: The Awakening,” which was directed by Franck Khalfoun from his own script. It’s produced by TWC’s Dimension and Blumhouse.
The original 1979 movie “The Amityville Horror” is based on the 1974 events at a rural house in Amityville, N.Y., which became the site of one of the deadliest hauntings and grisliest murders in American history when Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot all six members of his family. Jay Anson’s book “The Amityville Horror” detailed a family moving into the house in 1975 and leaving a week later due to paranormal activity.
The book was adapted in 1979 by American Independent Pictures and became a hit, grossing $86 million. MGM’s 2005 version earned $108 million worldwide. In “Amityville: The Awakening,” Thorne’s teenage character’s family moves into the house without knowing of its notoriety, and subsequently find themselves haunted by a demonic entity.
The Weinstein Company had planned to release “Amityville: The Awakening” several times since last year before scrubbing the release date. It announced on Sept. 21 — two weeks before the massive Harvey Weinstein scandal broke — that “Amityville: The Awakening” would be available for free exclusively on Google Play from Oct. 12 to Nov. 8 and have a limited one-day theatrical release on Oct. 28.
TWC had no comment about the theatrical release. Here’s a clip from the film that was released on Sept 20:
