SUNDAY AM UPDATE: Final number was as I predicted — $7.1 million. Hubris killed this former Oscar favorite. This was a missed opportunity. I feel bad for Fox Searchlight because they didn’t know what was happening. But they have Pablo Lorrain’s “Jackie” in their back pocket. Is there any way to save “Birth”? Just thinking of SAG Q&A’s makes me want Mylanta, on ice.

SAT AM: “Birth of a Nation” is DOA more or less after a lackluster Friday opening. Nate Parker’s excellent film took in just $2.6 million last night, eyeing a weekend of $7 million if they’re lucky.

The controversy over Parker’s 2001 rape acquittal and the subsequent scandal– including the suicide of the accuser in 2012– has done the film in.

On top of that, Parker’s mishandling of the publicity this week, his refusal to apologize for anything or even appear contrite, threw fat on the fire. Instead of looking like someone who was sorry and rehabilitated, Parker came across as angry. That was the last straw. I’m totally surprised about how this has gone.

Fox Searchlight bought “Birth of a Nation” for $17 million, the biggest payday at Sundance ever. They’ve probably spent another $20 million marketing it. To get to $40 million– that seems difficult. If the movie had caught on, if the black community had rallied to it, if historians had declared it a “must-see” movie…if, if, if.

And is there an international market for “Birth”? Unlikely.

Now it’s hard to compare, but “12 Years a Slave,” with crazy great publicity and Oscars etc only made $56 million domestically. Abroad it actually made $131 million, which is outstanding. But that again was with all the bells and whistles, and no negatives. So “Birth” is pretty much over, I’m afraid. What a shame.

Kristen Stewart arrived 15 minutes late on Thursday to a press conference for “Personal Shopper,” one of her many films this year. She was met by a round of applause. “I was on time. He was early,” she joked, and pointed to director Olivier Assayas.

Stewart looked terrific in a low-cut tuxedo jacket, vest and trouser. Stewart is refreshingly candid, bright and unfiltered

“Personal Shopper,” which screens at the New York Film Festival, reunites Kristen Stewart with French director Olivier Assayas. They had great success with their last film, “Clouds of Sils Maria,” which earned the actress both a Cesar and a New York Film Critics Award.

The film is a supernatural thriller in which Kristen Stewart plays Maureen, a personal shopper who obtains pricey and chic outfits for her what seems her one high-profile customer. She also communicates with the dead and is desperately trying to reconnect with her twin, who recently died of a heart attack.

During the press conference for the film Thursday afternoon, the director said of his rapport with Stewart, “What’s extraordinary with Kristen is how smart she is in understanding the most intricate complexities of cinema, of filmmaking, of what is going on with the shot. She recreates the character from the inside and she does it knowingly, but at the same time she’s guided by her body.”

In “Personal Shopper” there’s a surprising sex scene; Maureen is in bed masturbating – in pricey Chanel flimsies – while she’s texting and being texted by a ghostly presence or human being. At this point no one cares because this is a pretty hot scene.

“Literally, Maureen is interacting with some thing on a phone, and like my heart started racing,” noted Stewart. “Some of the sexiest shit I’ve done onscreen I’m alone! I was like, ‘Oh my god, that is crazy, and that’s what people do all the time. That’s insane! Such massive disconnection, yet you’re just fabricating a wonderful reality. That’s not less real, it’s just perception.”

Then a journalist asked Stewart if she could break down her own outfit? Does she have a personal shopper?

“It’s a jacket and a vest and pants. I have a stylist. She’s rad,” noted Stewart. “But I choose my shit. I don’t like getting dressed by someone. This isn’t mine. We just borrow this stuff and go thanks! And then we give it back. They’ll all be getting this stuff back.”

Does Stewart believe in ghosts and has she had paranormal experiences someone asked?

Stewart said she and the director had many late night conversations about this very subject.

“If it’s real for you, then what the hell else is there? And like there’s so much that we don’t see that we know to be true” and so “I think it’s self protective like a reduction of what it is by saying, ‘Do you believe in ghosts or not? Have they touched you?’ Well what else doesn’t touch you that exists? I don’t know what the fuck energy it is, whatever, there’s something that doesn’t go away, and whether I’m making that up or I’m actually being left with some like residual debris, I feel people fucking intrinsically. I think it leaves shadows.”

Photo c2016 Showbiz411 by Paula Schwartz