Due to demographics? That you think is most representative as an indicator of how a movie will be received by the rest of the country?

I just was thinking about the fact that i don't consider NYC to be indicative of how a movie will be taken up by the country. Look at melinda and Melinda as an example, or even Manchurian Candidate.

There are some cities though that more accurately reflect the general tastes of the country. Is that true? Might have to do with immigration or class breakdown, etc?

I was wondering to everyone who watches movies very closely, if you've noticed that when a movie starts on limited release if there is a city it hits which sends off warning signals to you bout that movie's future as it continues to expand.

I don't know if there is any way of breaking down the wide releases as well? Seeing where they sell out opening weekend or where they don't, etc.

I'd think, most likely, Philadelphia and Chicago are two cities I would look at closely as indicators.

Philly! \:D/

Its true. i consider it a good mix of young and middle-aged professionals. Large suburban influence, a strong urban mix and a little less international as far as tastes, but still a large academic and especially health-related community that would welcome slightly more indie pics.

Pretty good cross-section and a stronger indicator to me than other cities on the northeast corridor.

What a beauty of a question dolecvita!


And my answer is yes, there is a city that I keep an eye on, and that is Toronto. Why? Because if it works here, it can find an audience anywhere. This is, according to the UN, the most diverse city in the world, and has a wild range of films, film festivals, film groups, etc., so it's really quite a good experimental ground.

In previous years, films that have succeeded here have gone on to much greater sucess elsewhere. Two examples are American Beauty and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, both of whom ended up playing very well worldwide, and hitting it big during the awards season.

Also, Toronto apparently has the highest per capita film attendance among North American cities, and accounts for a big chunk of the Canadian box office.

So yeah, this is a good town to keep an eye out for.

And we have a theatre that is shapped like a U.F.O.

beat that!

Toronto is an interesting pick. I think it falls into the same category as the two i look at. A healthy mix of population, but still very industrial and sort of "down-to-earth." Montreal to me is like Boston, they're too academic and bourgoise to be good indicators of how well a movie will do. L.A. is not, but it is too ethnic. In my mind, if Kung Fu Hustle does well there, its zero indication of KFH's reach. If it does well in Chicago and Philly, I might think otherwise. I've always though Toronto and Chicago were pretty similar actually, so while I didn't think of Canadian cities to track, your input makes sense to me.

A theatre shaped like a UFO even fits, since everyone says the new Bears Stadium looks like a UFO landed on it.

Here's a picture of it



*stops going incredibly off topic*

Ya baby, w00t!

Dolcevita, I think Chicago and Toronto are similar as well.

Haha! Here's Soldier's Field:



I'm wondering if anyone else thinks differently about benchmark cities? I almost included Atlanta, but I actually don't think the demographics quite fit as far as predicting a movie's trajectory path.

Same thing with Seattle, but it's actually too white, and too upper-class. Its up there with San Francisco, except less racial diversity.

I wonder about cities in Ohio though.

Oh man, I hate what they did to Soldier Field!

How could they ruin such a beautiful building by adding that ugly stuff to it?


I know it was a pretty big deal over there, as it should have been. They should have left it as it was. Meh.

Never ever look at Montreal. For the smallest of movies, people gather around and wait in line for hours. Montreal in no way indicates how a movie will perform in Canada. Then again, if you look at Montreal and Toronto combined and if the movie does great there, we pretty much make up most of the box office receipts : )

Yes, that's what I feel about Boston too. It basically has to do with the disproportionately high amount of extended adademic envirnments, and the general level of wealth, etc. I think there are some cities that have a mix, where part of the population is like that, but there are other cross sections.

I don't know, I wonder about Places like Columbus that were so contested and "unpredictable" in the past presidential elections. If that pretty much means they have pretty diverse tastes and populations. If a movie does well there is it a good indicator too?

I'm not sure how it is with Ohio, as far as being a guage of a movie's box office. My theater seems to be somewhat reflective of things. For instance, when Bruce Alimighty was sold out, I knew Matrix Reloaded was done for, and it was. When I went to see Sin City, I commented here that it had more people at the showing than I thought it would, and the box office was indeed reflective of that.

It's nothing that I really go by, though. It's so easy to project one's own opinions, and sometimes, you see what you want to see. If there is a blizzard or something, that's usually when I notice to how people here are reacting, because bad weather here has always seemed to be a good indicator of how all moviegoers on the east coast react.