Tarantino’s big, bloody, R-rated tale of lost love and revenge didn’t come cheap, with the movie ultimately racking up a $100 million budget — his most expensive movie to date. That’s firmly in the blockbuster territory, meaning it needed to deliver the goods. The Weinstein Company decided it would be a good idea to offer up Tarantino’s latest for the Christmas moviegoing crowd, serving as a bit of counter-programming to the other blockbusters and family-friendly fare out at the time. The movie opened wide on Christmas Day, getting a healthy jump on the long, holiday weekend. That strategy paid off in a hurry, as “Django Unchained” took in a healthy $15 million on Christmas, which set it up for a very good opening weekend.
While the movie narrowly missed out on the top spot in its first weekend, with “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” continuing its run at the top for the third week, it did earn $30.1 million. Accounting for the long New Year’s Eve weekend stretch, it pulled in $44.5 million come Tuesday morning. It was off to the races. The movie never topped the charts, again losing a narrow race to “Texas Chainsaw” the following weekend. But Tarantino’s bloody western (or southern, we might say) kept chugging right along with solid holds, week after week.
All told, the film earned a very impressive $162.8 million domestically, both in the lead-up to and in the aftermath of the Oscars that year. It also did an incredibly great $262.5 million internationally, as this one traveled very well. That put it at a grand total of $425.3 million worldwide, not to mention a couple of Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Christoph Waltz. It was an all-around smash that, in its heyday, The Weinstein Company was great at producing.