Dumb and Dumber To Still 2 - H 2014
Hopper StoneOne of Russia’s oldest film distributors, West, has gone bankrupt. Screenings of its most recent release, Evolution, have been canceled.
Bankruptcy proceedings against West have been launched based on lawsuits filed by the distributor’s creditors, including Mosfilm Master postproduction studio and production company Central Partnership, Moscow’s arbitration court said on its website.
Founded in 1994, West was one of Russia’s major film distributors, with such movies as American Pie, Sin City, The Green Mile, Scary Movie, Kill Bill, Twilight and The Wolf of Wall Street among its releases.
Last year, the company was among Russia’s top 10 film distributors. Its revenues reached 1.3 billion rubles ($32.2 million at last year’s exchange rate) and net profits amounted to 31.5 million rubles ($830,000), according to SPARK Interfax data base.
However, the company’s outstanding debts go back as far as 2009.
And the distributor apparently lost steam in 2015. Since the beginning of this year, West has released only three movies, The Age of Adaline, Dumb and Dumber To and John Wick, none of which showed an impressive box office performance.
West’s next release, the French-Italian animated film Evolution, was scheduled for Aug. 27, and the film was on movie theaters’ schedules as recently as this Monday, but it was then pulled from theaters.
