'Brokeback' finds a welcome in the 'burbs

The Los Angeles Times ^ | December 19, 2005 | R. Kinsey Lowe

[jcav]

Will "Brokeback Mountain" play in Plano? In the movie's first weekend in the Dallas suburb where the 2004 Mel Gibson film "The Passion of the Christ" earned some of its biggest grosses, the answer appeared to be yes.

After setting a record for the per-theater average for a dramatic movie in limited openings in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, critically acclaimed "Brokeback Mountain" faced its next obstacle as Focus Features expanded the so-called gay cowboy movie to strategically selected smaller cities.

The movie, directed by Ang Lee and starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as two ranch hands who develop an enduring emotional bond, "Brokeback Mountain" took in an additional $2.36 million in its first foray outside those three metropolitan cities, rising to No. 8 at the box office, Focus Features estimated Sunday. Its 10-day total is $3.3 million.

The closely watched debut in Plano, Texas, "was a revelation about the accessibility of this movie," said Focus head of distribution Jack Foley. "This is not gay-dependent. Attendance at those theaters indicates the film has the attention of suburban moviegoers."

It was the first time since Disney's animated "Pocahontas" in 1995 that a movie in fewer than 100 theaters cracked the top 10 box office ranking, according to tracking service Nielsen EDI Inc.

[RedWhiteBlue]

It's a suburb of Dallas. Income higher than the national average. Got a lot of press when a resident, Darlie Routier, killed her two young sons. (That's when I first became familiar with the city -- heard a lot about it then in realation to the case). Plano

[tongue-tied]

Sorry if someone has already put this up, but our nick name at work for this is "Bareback Mount Him". None I know will be rushing out to see it. (Although the military doesn't generally flock to these daring entries to cinematic excellence anyway.)

[nhoward14]

It's the first time the good guys in a Western get it in the end.

[durasell]

Thanks. So, part of the "metroplex area?"

[RedWhiteBlue]

Correct.

[KeyLargo]

Didn't bother to read the article when I saw if was from the LA Slimes.

[durasell]

A guy once drove me more than 50 miles to a restaurant from Dallas. People tend to travel long distances there...so it probably got a lot of the city business.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

A member of the starting five from one of the best Michigan NCAA Division I basketball teams-back in the early '90s-is originally from Plano, Texas.

There's a funny anecdote about how he was recruited in Mitch Albom's chronicle of their near championship season.

[tongue-tied]

Now that is funny...scary, yet funny.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"...the film has the attention of suburban moviegoers."

Yep. Suburbanites ARE paying attention; they're avoiding it like the plague around here.

[AmishDude]

According to Fandango, it's playing at the Cinemark Legacy, which is one of these googleplexes. Seems to be showing on 2 screens. It's also playing at Angelika. Which, yes, has a fascinatingly predictable lineup of films:BBM, Syriana, Pride and Prejudice, Shopgirl, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote.

If a town with this kind of theater is considered typical of Red State America, I don't know what the term means. It seems to be showing on two of Angelika's 6(?) screens.

[nonliberal]

This will probably get yanked (no pun intended) but...

Name two people who got shot in theaters.

Abraham Lincoln and the guy sitting in front of Pee Wee Herman.

[randog]

This reminds me of the engineering adage, "you can always get one to work", meaning you can always tweak the engineering prototype to work in a controlled laboratory setting. Trying to get a lot to work identically, i.e. get it into production and crank out thousands of identical units, is the real trick. Likewise, hosting a movie in select theatres and extrapolating success based on a few data points is pure BS.

[VoiceOfBruck]

Bruck's prediction: all gays will see it, and a good percentage of liberals will, just to show how open-minded they are. This adds up to some pretty big numbers so I don't think it will be a total flop.

Personally I'd rather chew glass, but I think the whole marketing strategy is brilliant. Evil, wrong, and gross, but brilliant.

[razorback-bert]

Dead on!

http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=8774

[durasell]

It doesn't need a large audience. Heck, I don't know why people are so surprised that people are seeing it. They go to Merchant Ivory films, don't they?

[HoosierHawk]

It's also a town in Illinois where they make alot of cool fishing gear and probably won't watch much "Bareback Mountin'"

[JustDoItAlways]

I don't know if saw Oliver Stone's Alexander, but it was totally disgusting.

Alexander the Great was just a homo was all that the movie was about. Probably the greatest leader of all time and this was all Stone could make the movie about?

It bombed. So will this crappy movie.

[Melas]

The venue was chosen to be "strategic" only in that they thought they could spin this as some sort of indication that the movie is doing well with the average American, which we all know is not the case. They're reporting this as if the movie got a huge draw in small-town America. Plano has a quarter million people and it is inside the major metropolitan area of Dallas. Show it in a true small town away from a metropolitan area and see what happens. Pack the theater in some place like Brenham, TX and I'll admit that would be significant, but getting some people to go to the movie in Plano proves nothing.

Can't agree with your assessment at all. The title of the article was all about the burbs, with nary a mention of small town America. Plano certainly isn't a small town, but it sure as hell is a suburb in ever definition of the word.