Box Office Disaster: FIFA Movie Starring Tim Roth as Sepp Blatter Sells 1 Ticket in Phoenix

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Robert Wilde

The debut of United Passions—a self-aggrandizing, feel good movie about the history of FIFA—couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Recent revaltions that the Fédération Internationale de Football Association was exposed as a bastion of corruption, resulting in the indictment of 14 soccer officials and the resignation of its president Sepp Blatter, probably won’t help promote the movie. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the box office dud, written and directed by Frederic Auburtin and staring Tim Roth as Sepp Blatter with hair, made a dismal $607 in the 10 theaters that it played in across the U.S. on Friday and Saturday.  

Significantly, the opening venues were not Podunk and Peoria, but New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Kansas City, Miami, Minneapolis, Houston, Dallas, and Philadelphia.   Closing in on an all-time cinematic low, the FilmBar theater in downtown Phoenix accounted for just $9 in box office sales, meaning only one person wasted his money on the movie.  

The top-performing theater screening United Passions was Laemmle’s NoHo 7 in North Hollywood, California, which raked in a cool $164.  The Shirlington 7 in Hagerstown outside of Washington, D.C. fetched a tidy $161, while the Cinema Village 3 in NYC cashed in $112 in ticket sales.  

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Frank Scheck stated in his review, “Even without the cloud of the recent disturbing developments, United Passions is a cringeworthy, self-aggrandizing affair that mainly benefits from its unintentional camp value.”

Investors have a way to go before they hit break even on the football flop. United Passions budget is estimated at between $25 million to $32 million. FIFA reportedly put up about three-quarters of the money.

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