In last week's magazine, Michael Idov described the long and winding road that Darren Aronofsky's new film, The Fountain, took to the theaters. Abandoned by its original star Brad Pitt, the film was shelved in 2002, revived through the writer-director's unyielding insistence, and finally shot, four years later, for about half of its original budget. Aronofsky had put his entire career on the line for this trippy sci-fi story of star-crossed lovers, declining a multitude of big Hollywood offers (which included an early version of Batman Begins) to do The Fountain instead. After all that, no one seemed hopeful the movie would make much money. "Warner Bros. seems to have … made Zen-like peace with every possible financial outcome," Idov wrote. So what was the financial outcome? Not good. The Fountain barely scraped the top ten, gathering $5.4 million over the long, five-day weekend. Its regular three-day gross was $3.73 million. And, hey, it only cost $35 million.

Pi in the Sky [NYM]
Weekend Box-Office Report [Yahoo Movies]