'Shock and Awe' doing better abroad than at home

Shock and Awe, which included Acacia Filmed Entertainment among its production companies, will hit Japanese theaters in March.

Director Rob Reiner spoke to the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo on Feb. 1 as part of his promotion of the Iraq War film.

The movie did poorly in U.S. theaters, but companies involved in the film are hoping for a more favorable foreign market.

Acacia Filmed Entertainment is jointly owned by the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe in Marksville and Australian filmmaker Matthew George’s Savvy Media Holdings in California.

The movie stars Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, James Marsden, Jessica Biel, Milla Jovovich and Reiner.

It tells the story of Knight Ridder journalists who determined the stated reason for the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- to recover weapons of mass destruction from the Saddam Hussein regime -- was untrue.

The film is critical of the “mainstream media” that accepted President George W. Bush’s explanation for the need to invade Iraq.

Box Office Mojo reports the movie earned $77,980 in its U.S. release in the summer of 2018.

It has earned $104,635 in foreign theaters, including $64,997 in the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf area.

George, reached just as he was boarding a flight in Los Angeles, said the Reiner film was shown for a month on DirecTV -- which was one of its distributors -- and that impacted the box office take for the film.

He said he is hopeful the film will be well-received in the foreign theaters.

George said he has not worked with the Tunica-Biloxi on any other projects since Shock and Awe, “but we are always looking for new projects.”

George’s Savvy Holdings was involved in the recent war journalist film, A Private War, but Acacia was not involved in that project.

That film depicted the life of American-born British war correspondent Marie Colvin, who was killed while on assignment in Syria on Feb. 22, 2012.

That film, released in November 2018, has earned $1.63 million in U.S. theaters and $1 million in foreign release.

About $360,000 of that was in Italy and $330,000 was in Middle East nations.