Prejudiced against Pride?
The ladies in my life are Pride & Prejudice fans and a couple of months ago promised them I would take them to the new version, starring Keira Knightly and Matthew MacFadyen, upon it's release.
Unfortunately for me I didn't offer to take them to a real life gangster/rapper/scumbag movie, I offered to take them to a Victorian love story that involves 1 kiss, and that is post-marital. I say unfortunately because it wasn't playing anywhere in our Region, or the neighboring one for that matter. No the closest it was playing was at Square One mall in Mississauga, about 1/2 an hour away. Last weekends schedule was a bit hectic so we decided we couldn't squeeze the extra hour in. Instead we made plans for this weekend. Why not? It is after all at a significant mall and it is only 6 weeks until Christmas. It's a date, we said.
Then came Monday: The weekends box office is released and Pride & Prejudice is the #10 (US box officee) money earner for the weekend, even though it only showed in 215 theatres. Got that theatre number? 215. That 4 per state! That's puny! But it was number 10 on the money list. Further it's average per theatre was number 1 at $13,326. By comparison, the number 1 movie, Chicken Little, played in 3,658 locations for an $8,653 average. Zathura at number 2, another movie in it's first week, averaged $4,166 showing in over 3,000 theatres.
So it now seems logical that I won't have to travel to Mississauga with those kinds of numbers, surely a local theatre is being run by a profit minded business person and they will bring in Pride & Prejudice. Surely!
Surely Not!!
Here it is the weekend and the trip to Mississauga is back on. And I have to ask myself, what is going on here? Why is nobody who owns one of the 30 or 40 screens within reasonable distance of my house willing to show a money making movie? A movie that, based on the numbers, people want to go see if only they could.
Somebody who is hardcore right winger may suggest there is a Hollywood plot to promote immorality, that Pride & Prejudice is not left wing enough. But I'm not a conspiracy minded individual, so I don't buy that. More likely that the prevailing mindset that sex and violence sells is too hard to overcome. However, this is the 3rd movie in the last year that I have wanted to see that has not been in a local theatre upon release; this time I'm willing to drive 50KM to see the movie.
Next time you hear a radio show talking about the decline in theatre attendance, remember this!
In the meanwhile, I'm going to track how well this movie does, and I'll try and post a review: if people are going to have to go to an extra effort to see it, they might as well have as much information as possible.
Unfortunately for me I didn't offer to take them to a real life gangster/rapper/scumbag movie, I offered to take them to a Victorian love story that involves 1 kiss, and that is post-marital. I say unfortunately because it wasn't playing anywhere in our Region, or the neighboring one for that matter. No the closest it was playing was at Square One mall in Mississauga, about 1/2 an hour away. Last weekends schedule was a bit hectic so we decided we couldn't squeeze the extra hour in. Instead we made plans for this weekend. Why not? It is after all at a significant mall and it is only 6 weeks until Christmas. It's a date, we said.
Then came Monday: The weekends box office is released and Pride & Prejudice is the #10 (US box officee) money earner for the weekend, even though it only showed in 215 theatres. Got that theatre number? 215. That 4 per state! That's puny! But it was number 10 on the money list. Further it's average per theatre was number 1 at $13,326. By comparison, the number 1 movie, Chicken Little, played in 3,658 locations for an $8,653 average. Zathura at number 2, another movie in it's first week, averaged $4,166 showing in over 3,000 theatres.
So it now seems logical that I won't have to travel to Mississauga with those kinds of numbers, surely a local theatre is being run by a profit minded business person and they will bring in Pride & Prejudice. Surely!
Surely Not!!
Here it is the weekend and the trip to Mississauga is back on. And I have to ask myself, what is going on here? Why is nobody who owns one of the 30 or 40 screens within reasonable distance of my house willing to show a money making movie? A movie that, based on the numbers, people want to go see if only they could.
Somebody who is hardcore right winger may suggest there is a Hollywood plot to promote immorality, that Pride & Prejudice is not left wing enough. But I'm not a conspiracy minded individual, so I don't buy that. More likely that the prevailing mindset that sex and violence sells is too hard to overcome. However, this is the 3rd movie in the last year that I have wanted to see that has not been in a local theatre upon release; this time I'm willing to drive 50KM to see the movie.
Next time you hear a radio show talking about the decline in theatre attendance, remember this!
In the meanwhile, I'm going to track how well this movie does, and I'll try and post a review: if people are going to have to go to an extra effort to see it, they might as well have as much information as possible.
posted by Brian at 14:31
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