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 ...
Right, popcorn with extra butter. Yuck
Though it might not have been pluralized.
I'm amazed at how hard the media is straining to make this bomb seem appealing.
You would assume that even the most cloistered left-wing zombie would start to catch the drift after a while.
I guess not.
The film and its attendant media-spin is a big joke. As a matter of fact....
2 queer sheep herders walk into a tent...
If you can't pound the facts, pound the table.
Eventually, they will reduce the stats to "The avg salary of movie watcher for this movie was...".
What a pathetic attempt to shine a turd.
The $14 million cost for making BrokeHump does not include marketing and advertising costs. I would expect they're not spending a ton, even those ads have been running in NYC.
If you cant pound the table... Nah...wont go there.
"Brokedick Mountain", There, correct movie title.
Absolutely ROFLMAO!!!!!!
Thanks for making my day!
homosexual cowboys..........ew! So now the homosexuals want to take away cowboy heros....double puke!
It will probably make money. But that is only because the actors and directors took a huge cut in pay to make this movie and the movie enjoyed millions of dollars of free hype by the liberal critics and the MSM. If Bareback had paid normal salaries and had to pay for its publicity, it would have lost money bigtime. But this wasn't about making money of course, but advancing negative stereotypes of conservatives while trying to put the best possible face on liberalism.
In one sense I agree - put aside all the adoring MSM hoopla and what you've got is a glorified arthouse flick.
But that's the good news. As several here have pointed out, it's box office take is nowhere near to covering production costs and already they are getting close to being out of reliable markets. And promotional costs must have been substantial, just considering the TV ad buys - it would not surprise me to find those costs exceeded production costs.
As peyton randolph says, gays may prop it up through January with repeat viewings but the demographics are such that it won't be enough.
All in all, it's a small financial gamble by Hollywood standards, well worth the political and Oscar points they think they are scoring. That's what this flick is about.
I love how they use the per-screen number to inflate the success of this movie. LOVE.
6 theaters with a highly-targeted (and VERY affluent audience) == Widely-distributed Family Film?
Hey Hollywood, keep it up!
(I'd love to see you become COMPLETELY irrelevant next year!)
Well since we can't seem to let this movie go since we discuss it everyday. The worst thing about this movie is that they fu** around when they are married. You know it is bad enough that it is a gay film, but they just had to add adultury which was not necessary. It looks like a stupid boring film anyway. I can't even imagine why the gays would want to see this anyway.
comparing apples to road-apples...
Giant Commie Robot sez:
YOU CAPITALIST, BOURGEOISIE FILTH! How little you see, plutocratic, homophobic scum. "Brokeback Mountain" is the height of aesthetic realism, and gay, robotic, Soviet artistic expression. You shall lap up our tendentious propaganda about gay sheep-rustlers eating the pudding of the proletariat, or YOU SHALL BE CRUSHED BY THE ONCOMING ONSLAUGHT OF THE WORKER-LABORER STATE! Fascist-capitalists who despise the heightened consciousness aroused by the brilliant, politically correct oeuvre of Kushner and Larry Kramer will have no place in our classless utopia. *buzz* *clank* *sssssst* DEVIATIONISTS MUST BE CRUSHED!!! *plonk*
Yes, they're just easing it in...
Right here at FR!
Can you remember a film
getting daily threads
every day this long?
Freepers are plugging this film
with the same passion
of Lord Of The Rings!
Any publicity is
good publicity!
So many Freepers
talking about this movie
will make it millions!
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