Posted on 12/29/2005 6:11:43 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
LOS ANGELES - Who's afraid of a couple of gay cowboys? Not moviegoers, who helped "Brokeback Mountain" post the highest per-screen average over the film-flush holiday weekend.
The Ang Lee film, which follows the 20-year forbidden romance between two roughneck ranch hands, earned $13,599 per theater, compared with $9,305 for weekend winner "King Kong" and $8,225 for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."
The big question is whether "Brokeback" can maintain its momentum as it moves from selected cities, where audiences are receptive to the subject matter, to suburbs far and wide, where that might not be the case.
Early numbers — and early awards buzz — establish the picture's staying power, industry insiders say. "Brokeback" earned a leading seven Golden Globe nominations.
"It delivered very strong growth in what is truly a highly unforgiving, competitive, cruel market at this Christmas period," said Jack Foley, president of theatrical distribution for Focus Features. "It showed it has breadth beyond the gay community."
Distributors planned to roll out the film slowly. It opened in just six theaters, where it earned an "unprecedented" $109,000 per venue, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracker Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Or chapped lips...
Solely because of their dishontest marketing.
Is that the cost of just making the movie, or of all expenses? I ask because Disney's Treasure Planet didn't even make enough to pay for the cost of advertising. While BM doesn't have near the advertising as a Disney would-be "blockbuster" (and no Burger King tie-ins, etc) there should be some expenses for promoting the thing-so this movie may be even more of a financial bomb than your scenario suggests.
COFFEE!!! Too much coffee!!! Plus, I just learned to type without looking at the screen. It's fun!
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It is common within the industry and takes into account what is known as P&A costs; that is the Prints (copies of the film at $100k per) and local Advertising expense. The wider the release the greater the P&A and due to the way distribution deals are structured, the harder it is to recoup production costs.
When you walk into a Tampa theater and count the number of people on a Friday night watching Brokeback...and its less than 60...you've got profit issues. There is a profit margin for every theater...and if a movie can carry it...you dump it quickly. Well...in this case...there are probably 40 theaters throughout the nation...half in LA or San Fran which are profitable on this movie. The rest are spread throughout the country. It simply isn't making any major profit.
Yep, they went from 10 screens to 69 screens and now to 219 screens, and each week their Boxoffice is going down. They are still clinging to their first weekend where every gay in San Fransissy went to see it four times.
Exactly. This is totally deceptive.
It is amazing how they have greatly increased the theaters each week but they keep slipping at the box office. Spin, spin, spin those numbers.
Anyone care to splain!!
nevermind
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=brokebackmountain.htm
Monday the 26th was the first day when they broke $1,000,000 in a single day.
This movie will die on the vine.
"Brokeback Mountain's nomination for Best Picture of the Year depicts a tragic picture of the all time moral low our culture has sunk to. When a movie based on a short story, containing graphic, explicit, dangerous homosexual anal sex by two men is elevated to Best Picture of the Year, America better wake up. With HIV and AIDS on the rise, and homosexual men dropping dead because of this dangerous, potentially deadly behavior, you better believe, I'll be sounding the alarm on this movie. I've buried too many friends who died from AIDS to keep quiet on this one," said Bennett.
Straight Talk Radio
I guess when the total box office take is crummy, you talk about sales per screen.
Exactly. This is totally deceptive.
At the local theaters here in the SF Bay Area King Kong is or was playing on as many as 4 screens per theater. Funny they don't mention that.
Yes, but that was a Holiday weekend and a day everyone had off with nothing to do. If you notice their ranking dropped from 8th to 14th. Other movies on that holiday weekend kicked its barebutt.
Dear Always Right,
Dec 23, 24 & 25 were off from a week before, but Dec 26 (a traditionally strong day for movies) came back rather strongly. Box Office Mojo hasn't shown any numbers for Tuesday or Wednesday, yet. That'll be the real test to see how well this flick will do.
In 217 theaters, now, the movie's per-screen gross is still strong (although perhaps not as strong as should be for such a limited release). One wonders, though, what would happen if they released in a thousand theaters instead of two hundred.
It's possible that the film will at least gross the cost to film and distribute, perhaps even possible to eventually break even (especially once released to DVD). But of course, this is only because some of the folks associated with this film (including the award-winning director) forewent much of the compensation that they usually would have received for their participation. Otherwise, this film would have easily cost double or triple what it actually did.
So the lesson is, if some communofascist pigs of Hollyweird get together and give away millions of dollars of their own time to produce a movie that undermines critical social values, they might not get soaked at the box office.
sitetest
You forgot the dispensers of "bite pillows", too.
This film has a loooong way to go before it gets anywhere near profitable.
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