Why did a Shia LaBeouf film make only £7?

Shia LaBeouf’s latest film hasn’t exactly set the UK box office on fire.

War movie Man Down, which also stars Gary Oldman, Jai Courtney and Kate Mara, made £7 on its opening weekend.

Or – to put it another way – the film sold one adult ticket.

To put that into perspective, Beauty and the Beast took a further £6.75m over the weekend.

Why so low? Well, to be fair, it did only open in one place: the Reel Cinema in Burnley.

The screening was held to coincide with the film’s simultaneous release on digital platforms.

The cinema has since told the BBC it has sold a further four tickets – including two on Wednesday.

And while the popularity of the film has not gone through the roof, the staff member said there had been “quite a few” calls from the media.

The film’s appearance in just one cinema is likely to have been done to secure reviews in the media.

But Man Down has not fared well with the critics. The Daily Telegraph says Man Down is a “bomb site of a film” and gave it one star, while The Guardian’s two-star review calls it “irredeemable”.

The i is slightly more favourable, giving the film three stars. It is “impossible to fault Shia LaBeouf’s commitment to the lead role” of an ex-marine who has post-traumatic stress disorder, its writer says.

Other films released last weekend that only opened at one cinema include Guru, which grossed £17, and horror film The Void, which grossed £1,163, according to figures from the British Film Institute.

And last year, Beauty and the Beast and Harry Potter actress Emma Watson’s film Colonia, also known as The Colony, made just £47 over its opening weekend in the UK.

But we still have an unanswered question: who was the one LaBeouf fan who bought that ticket?

If you want to catch it on the big screen there’s just one screening in Burnley left – tomorrow at 12:20 BST.

There are only 78 seats left though, so you had better be quick.

BBC