The Hollywood Reporter says Nate Parker's "The Birth of a Nation" plunged a whopping 60 percent at the box office in its second weekend of release — and could end up losing the movie studio $10 million.
The R-rated film, which tells the real-life story of a slave rebellion, was the talk of Hollywood when it was bought by Fox Searchlight for $17.5 million at the Sundance Film Festival.
Some critics believed Parker's film was a shoo-in at the Oscars and would bring in a sizeable cash haul for Fox.
But then news emerged of a 1999 rape case in which actor-director-writer Parker and the movie's co-writer Jean Celestin were involved in.
While Parker was acquitted and Celestin had his conviction overturned, the stigma of the case stuck, compounded by the fact the alleged victim later committed suicide and Parker's stilted reaction to the controversy was panned by some.
Box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian told The Reporter that success "once seemingly preordained when the film was picked up at Sundance was derailed by the unfortunate extemporaneous baggage that followed the movie once news of the Parker controversy broke."
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