Platform Releases Doing Great Box Office Business So Far

Posted by Michael Dance

As it's now mid-December, the U.S. box office has become flooded with Oscar products, each typically being shown on less than 500 screens.

The standard operating procedure, if you've got a movie that might be a tough sell for audiences but which has a shot at getting some nominations, is to open first in only New York and Los Angeles. Art house crowds will flock to your movie, and you'll get a terrific per-theater dollar average.

The next weekend, you expand to a few more major markets -- Chicago, Austin, Washington D.C., San Francisco, etc. The weekend after that, you hit more markets. Buzz keeps growing and growing, and finally -- once you're sure that folks in rural Montana have heard of your movie -- you expand wide. Not too wide, but maybe 1,500 screens.

Every so often, the distribution company of a would-be platform release gets cocky and releases a movie too early in over 1,000 theaters before giving it a chance to grow, and the results are almost exactly the same: it opens way too low, and now there's no way to build buzz -- it'll just quickly and quietly leave theaters. (A recent example: Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna. Oh, you didn't see it?)

Anyway, that's Limited Releases 101. The actual topic of this post is supposed to be about the platform releases that are out right now.

The good news? All of them are actually doing very well, at least so far:

Milk is in its third weekend and is now playing in 328 theaters. It broke into the top ten movies list this weekend, coming in at #9 with $2.6 million and a $7,923 per-theater average -- terrific for a movie that's been out for a few weeks.

Slumdog Millionaire is following a similar pattern but actually doing a bit better, perhaps thanks to an even more cautious expansion. It's been out for five weeks already, but this weekend it played in only 169 theaters and made $2.2 million for a $12,873 average.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas isn't a top Oscar contender but has been smart about its release nonetheless. It's been out for six weeks and has expanded to 679 theaters by now. It's definitely on its way down -- this weekend's average was only $1,010 -- but it's managed to make $7.8 million. Not too shabby for a star-less Holocaust drama, and it'll pave the way for solid DVD rentals and sales, too.

Frost/Nixon had been out for two weeks now and is doing terrifically. It made $0.6 million this weekend from only 39 theaters for a $16,061 average.

On top of all of those, three new movies, each with ridiculously high pedigree, came out this weekend:

The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, grossed $170,000 from 8 theaters for a per-theater average of $21,250.

Doubt, starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams, grossed about a half million from 15 theaters for a $33,815 average.

And finally, Gran Torino, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, opened in 6 theaters and grossed $271,720 for an average of $45,287 -- the best of any movie this weekend.

Surely all of these can't be successful, can they?

As of right now, they are. But The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, as I said, is on its way out. The Reader, meanwhile, doesn't look like it has the starpower or overwhelming critical support that could make it expand well. And Milk is still a wide-release question mark; as of right now, Brokeback Mountain is the only other gay-themed movie to score at the box office, and even that one, with all its awards, didn't cut through the $100 million mark.

Of the limited-release films coming up, Revolutionary Road should play well thanks to the starpower alone -- even though the movie's actually about a very unhappily married couple. Nothing But the Truth, on the other hand, will come into the marketplace with almost no buzz and could disappear quickly. Two other Holocaust movies (there are a ton this year), Defiance and Good, are both question marks, but the starpower is relatively low (they star Daniel Craig and Viggo Mortensen, respectively), and so are the moneymaking prospects.

One complete question mark? The Wrestler. So far its gotten universally terrific reviews -- seriously, it's at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes -- but the subject matter might be a very tough sell for audiences. Is anybody going to rush out to see Mickey Rourke play a former pro wrestler?

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Platform Releases Doing Great Box Office Business So Far

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