Box Office 2.0: Fall Winners and Losers

Mo'Nique in a scene from Lee Daniels' "Precious." Image courtesy of Lionsgate.

With Thanksgiving two days away, the film industry’s fiscal seasons are-a-changing.  While fall technically continues through December 20th, in the film world it’s now offically “holiday season,” a time for Oscar heavyweights and big-budgeted family fare.  So indieWIRE decided to devote this week’s Box Office 2.0 column to examining the winners and losers of a season past. 

Keeping with our namesake, this obviously doesn’t mean congratulating “Couples Retreat,” “2012” and “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” on defying America’s better judgement. It means taking a look at some of the season’s indie successes and disappointments, from the unheard of success stories of “Precious” and arguable indie “Paranormal Activity” to the unfortunate ruts of distributors like Miramax and Fox Searchlight.  While this “winner and loser” format unfortunately misses out on a few grey areas, it should give a good idea as to how the fall went down (though for more on the season’s greyest of grey areas - IFC Films’ “Antichrist” and Apparition’s “Bright Star” - check out this column from a few weeks back).

Overall, the season has seen a considerable uptick from a year ago.  Fall 2008 saw only four films - “Fireproof,” “Religulous,” “The Duchess,” and “Rachel Getting Married” - cross the $3 million mark by Thanksgiving.  This year, we have nine (see the chart on page 3 of this article).  More over, everyone can breathe a sigh of a relief in the simple fact that Kirk Cameron is not ruling this fall’s box office. 

Winner: Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Up until the very last minute people doubted Lee Daniels’ Sundance winner.  indieWIRE‘s Eugene Hernandez wrote a piece entitled “‘Precious,’ $1 Million or $100 Million?” two weeks before it opened, which brought with it comments that widely suggested it would be more the former than the latter.  But then “Precious” - released by Lionsgate - opened to an astounding $104,025 average from 18 screens, and a week later became the only film this decade to place in the overall top 3 while playing on under 200 screens.  Doubters were silence, and “Precious” rallied.  Three weeks in, the film has grossed over $20 million with impending awards boosts still to come.  While $100 million remains an uncertainty, betting against the film at this point is probably not in anyone’s best interest.

Loser: Black Dynamite

Another Sundance 2009 debut geared at African-American audiences (though the comparisons truly stop there), Scott Sanders’ “Black Dynamite” had a healthy festival life (it screened everywhere from Edinburgh to Rio de Janeiro to Oslo) before bombing in theaters this October. Grossing only $228,477 over two weeks before being removed from theaters, this second release from newly formed Apparition was one the fall’s major indie disappointments.

Winner: The Film Department

In June, 2007, Mark Gill and Neil Sacker announced the formation of The Film Department, an independent film finance, production and sales company. The company gained significant press due to the fact that they raised $200 million in initial capital, planning to fully finance their films and license them to domestic and international distributor. The proposed plan with The Film Department was 6 films a year for $10-35 million.  Over two years later, the company’s first film - “Law Abiding Citizen” - was released through Overture Films to a potent $21,039,502 opening weekend and a $70,018,193 final gross. Mark Gill (who formerly worked with the Weinsteins) joked at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival that the chances of a company like The Film Department succeeding are about 5%. “19 out of 20 of these don’t work,“he said. “It’s just great to be working for people who don’t want to kill you or eat you.” With “Citizen,” Gill’s assumingly having his cake and eating it too.

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A scene from Drew Barrymore’s “Whip It.” Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight. Loser: Fox Searchlight No wonder Searchlight brought “Crazy Heart” out at the last minute.  After a summer buoyed by “(500) Days,” the distributor saw three high profile films crash and burn. $40 million budgeted “Amelia,” directed by Mira Nair and starring Hilary Swank, has grossed only $13,766,323 in the wake of tepid reviews. More modest “Whip It,” the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore, nearly recouped its $15 million budget with a $12,994,912 gross but remains a disappointment considering its warm reviews and star power (it also marked Ellen Page’s first starring role post-“Juno.”). And while “Amelia” and “Whip It” were more aggressive wide releases, Searchlight tried the limited route with Jared Hess’s “Gentlemen Broncos,” and failed yet again. The film has grossed a mere $105,431 since opening last month. Winner: Paranormal Activity Though not tracked by indieWIRE‘s box office charts due to the fact that it was released by a studio, “Paranormal Activity” is very much an independent film. Oren Peil’s micro-budgeted horror film screened at the 2008 Slamdance Film Festival and was acquired by Dreamworks and Paramount in a truly rare series of events (Steven Spielberg plays a pivotal role). The film was marketed virally, and opened initially on 12 college town screens to a $6,489 average. Then it lept 587% on an expanded 33 screens, averaging $16,212, and then managed a massive $7,066,000 from 159 screens the following weekend.  This weekend-to-weekend awe of expectation defiance continued pretty much all the way through to its now $106,082,922 gross, or over 7,000 times its $15,000 budget. Loser: The Boys are Back and Extract It’s a bit of a stretch, but while “Activity” marked the biggest indie success story of the year, the fall of Miramax marked the opposite.  In the wake of serious internal probems, the distributor saw its fall slate tank.  Miramax’s few hopes at redemption after early 2009 financial misfires like “Adventureland” and “Cheri” include Mike Judge’s “Extract,” which managed just over $10 million in wide release, and Clive Owen drama “The Boys are Back,” which came out of mild reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival to last only 6 weeks in theaters.  Along the way, it grossed only $809,752, making “Cheri” and “Adventureland” look like relative success stories.  -This article continues on page 2- Page 1 of 3 Next Login to recommend this article » posted on November 24, 2009 |Share Comments 1 xixaxx says on November 29, 2009 at 11:30am Damn! BLACK DYNAMITE never even got a release here in the Bay Area, except for a pair of one-off special screenings in Oakland/SF last weekend. Onto the Netflix queue it goes, I suppose… 2 njrenee says on November 24, 2009 at 9:33pm Why wouldn’t “New Moon” be considered an independent film as both the production company and distributor is Summit Entertainment? 3 Tape Store says on November 24, 2009 at 8:29pm ADVENTURELAND wasn’t really a financial misfire, more of a marketing misfire… 4 bijan says on November 24, 2009 at 4:22pm One wonders how a biographical doc such as “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” doesn’t get nominated. It takes a mountain of research and knack for archival usage to produce such a work, and biopic docs and their casts do so well as features w/ Academy voters (“A Beautiful Mind”, “Gandhi”, “Capote”, “Elizabeth”, “Raging Bull”, “Milk” et al). Login to Leave a Comment »