I saw the movie, yes I do, I'm not gay but i respect people choices, in case you all think this is the point.

The real reason is that the movie try so hard to be a love story, and for me is not, it is a story about a two guys that are wasting their time for not having a objective in life, they simple don't know what to do. I got bored.

The movie is well done, the acting is good, but the story try to be something that is not, that make me mad.

So the movie is a crap.

Cheers !

Danyari is missing the point...

Isn't everyone entitled to their own opinion? I mean, are you going to say that whoever doesn't like the movie is missing the point?

No, I value and appreciate everyone's opinion. It seems the movie did not connect with them, and I'm sorry to hear that it didn't.

well, you can not like the movie. but calling it crap because you think " the story [tries] to be something that [it] is not" is missing the point.

Thank you I_Was_Your_Sam.

Fine, i am all years, what is the point?

Don't forget that it is your point, yours only.

Cheers !

OBS: Thx for the english lesson, if you want, I can teach you portuguese. Oh, portuguese from brasil, not from Portugal.

I've been expecting under 40m all along, and I maintain that. This past weekend proves that it is unable to do well outside of a few major urban areas. The drop was quite dramatic, and in those 148 theaters it's quite clear it was not able to have more then a $5,000 average. With further expansions that number would drop much lower. It also doesn't have legs as shown by the hold. Despite the very limited release it would have dropped at least 45% without the expansion. If you gave it a wide release (2,000+) right now and let it play out it would finish with no more then 25m. I don't care what it does at the oscars, it won't reach 40m.

As much as I would like it not to, it will pass $40 million and if it wins Best Picture, it will pass $50 million too.

Winning makes no difference with it being released on DVD 2 days later.

Without a BP nom: 21m
With a BP nom, but not win: 34m
With win: 35m

They will delay the DVD release date I think. It seems way too fast.

This weekend was a complete disaster compared to other expansions for Oscar films. However, I don't think it should be a surprise given the type of movie it is.

Why? It will sell more copies.

Theaters: A couple million on the line of which the studio gets 30%.

DVD: Several times more on the line of which they get 70%.

Actually given its upcoming expansion, it will stand at $20+ million by the time the nominations are announced.

They can still get just as much from DVD sales a month later. But releasing it on DVD right after the Oscar win would kill its box-office. Why not waiting a month? Those who want to buy it, will still buy it.

The upcoming expansion will hardly earn it anything given the way it failed to attract audiences in its new theaters this week. It will be lucky to get 2.5m in 400 theaters on the 6th-8th of Jan. The week after while getting 100 more it will drop 40% even with the holiday. That would give it an average of $3,000 (I think this scenario is optimistic), and at that point it would have trouble expanding anymore whatsoever. That would put it shy of 20m by the end of the month, and I again think that there is room for it to perform worse. Oscars can give it a boost, but by late February I think it's likely to be struggling to remain in theaters.

I disagree entirely, Ray sold 120m on DVD. I couldn't imagine it doing that in April. The Aviator had about half as much on with a higher BO gross. That one might be due to WOM, but M$B was even lower then The Aviator even with the BP win. I do think Ray had better WOM then M$B among mainstream audiences, but that does not nearly explain it.

Additionally, winning BP doesn't make as much of a difference at the BO as people often think. The buzz quickly dies down at that point, so it doesn't have too long of an effect. Being seen at the winner before the oscars is more important at the BO then actually winning.

BTW, Seabiscuit had even better sales then Ray.

Well, the way I see it is that by the end of Monday it will stand at around $13 million. By the end of the Jan 6-8 weekend, it should stand at $15-16 million. It will still be expanding from then on and getting Oscar buzz, so I don't see how it can not make $25+ million even if it misses out on a BP nom (which it won't). Moreover, this is exactly the kind of a movie that is helped immensly by Oscars. I mean the only reason I am seeing this is because it is a frontrunner as of now.

I disagree entirely, Ray sold 120m on DVD. I couldn't imagine it doing that in April. The Aviator had about half as much on with a higher BO gross. That one might be due to WOM, but M$B was even lower then The Aviator even with the BP win. I do think Ray had better WOM then M$B among mainstream audiences, but that does not nearly explain it.

Additionally, winning BP doesn't make as much of a difference at the BO as people often think. The buzz quickly dies down at that point, so it doesn't have too long of an effect. Being seen at the winner before the oscars is more important at the BO then actually winning.

BTW, Seabiscuit had even better sales then Ray.[/quote]

It also has to do with rewatchability, though. That plays a huge role. I think M$B is a better movie than Ray and The Aviator, yet I'd rather buy these two as movies like M$B hold absolutely no rewatchability value, in my opinion.

I have it at 15m on the higher end.



It won't be expanding much after MLK weekend; how could it? The theater average will be too low, and the gap between the top-grossing theaters and the rest will be great. Will theaters add it to that it might gross $1,000 on the first weekend?



Small films that are ultimately mainstream to a large extent are the ones to most benefit from the oscars. Small films that are not, benefit the least. Furthermore, it is older audiences that power oscar BO. They will shy away more then any other age group to this film as a result of the subject matter. So, I think it has the least potential to benefit from the oscars of any movie as far back as I can remember.

That could be understood to be weaker WOM in a sense.

In any case though, given just how amazing 120m was for Ray, I think that it can't be explained without giving the release date much, if not most, of the credit. Besides, one film can be a fluke, but with Seabiscuit as well, I think it proves the point.

Nice discussion, guys. Good points all around.

I just want to add a couple of things:

1. I agree with Lecter that this is the type of film that can benefit a lot from Oscar nominations. Furthermore, there is a chance that It´ll be the most nominated movie of the year, and even if that is not the case, it looks like It could get 6 to 8 nominations, therefore standing out in a crowd of not so tech-powerful films. That is great publicity.

2. DP07, I don´t think this last weekend was that significant. It was Xmas, and this is not your typical Xmas movie. And It dropped hard and the expansion wasn´t therefore very succesful, but probably because It was coming from such a high point... That kind of PTA was impossible to sustain. Its expansion numbers right now are very comparable to other Oscar type films and in some cases even better. Take a look at this number:

$1,828,760 - 279 Screens - $6554 PTA. That is Sideways third weekend. Of course you could say It didn´t have award buzz yet. So this is sideways, this weekend last year:

$1,169,527 - 359 Screens - $3257 PTA (Total by then: $18,500,087)

Sideways went on to make $71M. Again, that is not what It has to happen in BBM´s case, but I am just pointing out that a movie with a $3K PTA was able to earn and additional $53M in the box office.

3. You can always say that it´s the subject matter that will prevent BBM from crossing over... and you may very well be right. This is why, in that sense, BBM is a sort of crash test dummy - there hasn´t been anything like it before. So everything we can say at this point is pure speculation... But one thing seems clear: If there´s one movie that can benefit from awards attention, is this one. It may make people (like Lecter) go to a movie they didn´t really have any intention to see before.

4. That DVD release date is fake, or so It has been reported.

This weekend will be the true test to its potential..

If it ends up making 3.5 million or so for the 4-day, I think we can call it a lock to +50 million

Brokeback Mountain continued to surprise analysts over the weekend as the so-called gay cowboy love story emerged once again as the highest earner on a per-theater basis among films showing on more than 50 screens. Brokeback earned $13,599 per theater, far surpassing the $9,305 for King Kong and $8,225 for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Brokeback is currently showing in only 217 theaters, roughly 7 percent the number that are showing the two box-office leaders. Although some analysts have maintained that the film is unlikely to attract an audience among straight males, Jack Foley, Focus Features' distribution chief, told the Associated Press that the movie "delivered very strong growth in what is truly a highly unforgiving, competitive, cruel market at this Christmas period. ... It showed it has breadth beyond the gay community." Exhibitor Relations chief Paul Dergarabedian said that the studio was wisely limiting its release to major cities and slowly expanding it. "This is a film that builds through word of mouth and critical acclaim," he said. Brokeback is leading the pack among critics groups handing out best-picture awards. Thus far, conservative religious groups have been loath to mount an attack on it, concerned that doing so would further publicize the film. But in a review the Christian Film & Television Commission, which calls itself "a ministry dedicated to redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles," calls the film "twisted, laughable, frustrating and boring neo-Marxist homosexual propaganda."


http://www.showbizdata.com/contacts/picknews.cfm/40321/<I>BROKEBACK</I>_CROSSING_SEXUAL_(PREFERENCE)_DIVIDE

Daily numbers according to SBD:

Tuesday 694K PTA 3,100 -32%
Wednesday 755K PTA 3,479 +8%