Amber Heard's 'London Fields' nabs second worst box office opening of all time

The new adaptation of Martin Amis’s famed 80s novel London Fields, starring Amber Heard and Billy Bob Thornton, has recorded the second lowest box office debut of all time.

Showing on 613 screens in the US, it made $160,000 over the weekend – equating to just $262 per screen, and having cost a reported $8 million to make.

Box office stats website Box Office Mojo, which counts movies opening on over 600 screens as a ‘wide release’, places it just behind 2008 movie Proud American.

That movie told the stories of the founding of companies including Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola, but with sponsorship money from both companies. It made $96,076, or $128 per screen.

London Fields, meanwhile, found itself beset with legal problems, having been filmed in 2013, but prevented from release.

Nicola Six Productions, a production company set up to make the movie, sued Heard for $10 million in 2016, accusing her of a breach of contract.

It claimed that she refused to film nude scenes in the movie, despite having read Amis’s book, and knowing that they would be required, and also for not attending the movie’s planned premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015.

The suit was settled last month, which meant that the movie could be released.

Director Matthew Cullen, known predominantly for his music videos for Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Jay-Z, later sued the company for allegedly tampering with his final cut.

Nicola Six Productions countered that he’d failed to deliver the project on time and on budget.

The case is set to go to court in February.

To add further insult to injury, the movie has been battered by critics, with Rotten Tomatoes registering a rare 0% fresh rating.

The Los Angeles Times offered: “The aggressively awful London Fields is, once again, proof that not every successful novel should become a movie.”

The movie tells the story of Heard’s femme fatale Nicola Six, who is murdered after three men, played by Thornton, Jim Sturgess and Theo James, become infatuated with her.

It also found Heard’s husband at the time, Johnny Depp, featuring in a small role, and also stars Jason Isaacs, Cara Delevingne and Gemma Chan.

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