Brokeback Mountain: Expanding to 400 theaters
Brokeback Mountain is now only showing in 69 theaters nationwide. Focus Features is ramping up distribution plans for "Brokeback Mountain," going to 275 theaters on Jan. 6 and 400 on Jan. 13; much more than the 300 originally planned for the end of January. Also, test screenings at two conservative theaters - including one in Plano, Texas, that was among the highest grossers for "Passion of the Christ" - showed "Brokeback" ranking No. 2 and No. 3 in their complexes, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.]
The second weekend tally is in, and it looks like "Brokeback Mountain" is well on its way to match its critical acclaim with audience appeal. In its first weekend in broader release, the unusual Western love story - don't call it "the gay cowboy movie," says everyone associated with it - pulled in $2.4 million playing in just 69 theaters.
My boyfriend and I saw it on Wednesday night. I had read the reviews and heard the acclaim from friends - though it was not what I was expecting. It left me with a strange feeling... sort of a shocked feeling. Everyone calls it the 'gay cowboy' movie, which I guess it is. Though at the same time you seem to completely forget the gay aspect of the film. It's truly a love story, a painful one at that. Both Heath and Jake do an amazing job - but Heath carries the movie. Emotion spews from the characters even when they do not speak. I highly recommend seeing it.
Make sure to read Meg Daly's review of the movie here.
This entry was posted
on Friday, December 23, 2005 at 1:31 PM.
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Byi have been furious that the closest theater playing this is three and a half hours away (chicago.) i have been checking every week to see if it is expanding. this is great news and thank you. i've been lookin forward to it for so long and i was furious when it wasnt released like a regular movie, especially w/ all the globe nominations, meaning it is clearly a well done movie.
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Maybe I'm not to keen on marketing strategy but from what I have read throughout several movie portals, this movie has been a huge success even with revenue in the 2.5 million. Doesn't sound like much? Throwing perspective at you, it was only open in 69 theaters nationwide opening night. Now compare that to the 3,000 theaters that The Passion of the Christ opened in, that made a total of 93 million opening week. Statistics show that overall Brokeback Mountain made more money than Passion of the Christ during opening week. The ratio of sales (in millions) to theaters is lower for Passion of the Christ. Passion = 0.031, Brokeback = 0.0362. (Do the math yourself; divide the dollars generated by the theaters that opened with the movie) Now to the point of my blog, with such a strong ticket sales vs. theater openings, why wouldn't the production company throw this movie out to the thousands of markets that are itching to soak up this blockbuster hit? Why is the rollout so slow? I realize this type of movie needs to gain momentum before unleashing it to the general public but obviously the momentum seems to be bigger than Passion and if they would have released it nationwide, ticket sales would have soared off the charts for a movie of its kind. With the marketing strategy that Focus Features is using, slow rollout to get people talking about it, to get that itch out there. But the itch is there, where’s the scratch? The itch is going to fade, like now most reports of Brokeback from major news venues have published their reviews. They are not going to republish old material, therefore publicity of this movie through the majority of news venues are going dwindle, the less publicity is going to kill this movie. But as a student in high school studying statistics, we know statistics can always have an outlier, what’s next for this movie... the upcoming weeks will reveal maybe a change the way Americans depict the gay community.
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