Guess why....
OTOH, if the movie had wide appeal, it would have been in full release on opening day, wouldn't it?
Perhaps it would be more instructive to look at "why" they would put BBM in select-city-release for the first few weeks. My guess is that they wanted to build hype in friendly markets. A general release during Christmas would likely have resulted in a bomb performance. This would have killed the movie before it had time to get all over the morning shows with awards talk. We'll see how it does compared to the average "PG" film.
BBM will never be on as many screens as KK, never, ever, not even close.
Full release for BBM means another 500 'art' theaters.
Brokeback Mountain is NOT in a select-city release. It is in full, national release. They tried remaining in few theaters within a given city as possible, to create buzz, but the movie is showing in just about every major metropolitan area.
They went off their game plan when the movie expanded to 69 theaters, and saw the box office take drop badly during a week. (No, I can't be sure of cause and effect.) They then went from planning 130 theaters to opening in 217; apparently opening in any market that they could.
Homo on the Range has been released in the most liberal cities in the US (read that "homo lifestyle embracing cities"). It won't play in middle America.
That's right - going after the "base" first so they have good ratios to tout.
Interesting stats at boxofficemojo.com, brokeback increased the theatre realease by 148 theatres but still declined 28% in sales. It's one of the most ingeniously marketed films I've ever seen, but it's probably not going to break even even with the best marketing hype ever.
Second, BM was kept in minimal release because it would have fallen completely flat on its face in wide release - despite the enormous critical acclaim it has garnered from the usual suspects.
Third, BM will be put into wider release in January to coincide with the Academy Award nominations, of which it is guaranteed to get several due the critical treatment. Oscar buzz is always good for giving a film at least a week of undeserved life.
That's the whole Marketing thrust (pun intended) of that movie, which is limit its distribution to a few theaters so as to be able to cite viewers per theater numberse (these would be higher as the die hards who want to support the movie would be able to make much more of a difference by cramming in only a few theaters). Having created buzz by creating the fake excitement around the movie, they then open the movie nationwide.
Problem is that everybody now knows what the movie is about and its political propaganda message. With the advent of the internet it's really tough for producers to fool us anymore. Witness what happened to Million dollar baby. They tried to sell it as a boxing story, but the message got out about its euthanasia message and a lot of people who would have been fooled didn't.
That's true, but they have increased it from 69 theaters the previous week to 217 theaters this week, and it dropped from 8th on the box office to 13th. It is on the downslide.
But those selected cities should be its strongest markets. If you can't sell in San Francisco, where can you?