Mid-Year Report: Specialty Box Office Winners & Losers

A scene from Christine Jeffs' "Sunshine Cleaning." Image courtesy of the Overture Films.

Independence Day has come and gone, and as specialty distributors rev up their late summer sleepers and award-seeking fall slates, it’s time to take a glance back at the last six months. While we all know Hollywood seems to doing fine - with help from “Transformers” and “Up” overall 2009 box office is tracking 10% above last year - the news in Indiewood isn’t as hopeful. Only two films - Christine Jeffs’ “Sunshine Cleaning” and Sam Mendes’ “Away We Go” have grossed over $5 million. At this point last year, the top five specialty releases - “Under The Same Moon,” “Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day,” “The Visitor,” “In Bruges” and “Bella” - had grossed roughly $50.5 million (which was in itself a disappointment over the year prior). This year, that number stands at only $26.5 million.

But it’s not all bad news: Despite (or because of), Joaquin Phoenix’s infamously bizarre way of promoting it, Magnolia’s “Two Lovers” grossed $3.2 million (it also didn’t seem hurt by its day-and-date release on VOD); Recent openers “The Hurt Locker” and “Moon” appear en route to healthy final tallies;  “Every Little Step,” “Valentino: The Last Emperor” and “Food, Inc.” have become sizable documentary hits; And “Summer Hours” and “Sin Nombre” and joined 2008 holdovers “The Class” and “Gomorrah” as rare foreign language films able to find larger audiences.

Here’s a more detailed break down of some notable winners, and unfortunate losers:

Winner: Focus Features

Focus has seen $101.6 million in grosses in 2009, roughly 2% of the overall marketplace. The only specialty division to do better is Fox Searchlight, though that is almost entirely due to “Slumdog Millionaire”‘s carry-over grosses.  Though Focus’s success in this regard is also almost entirely due to one film - wide release “Coraline,” its smaller releases are notable as well:  Sam Mendes’ “Away We Go” has grossed $6.1 million in its five weeks of release, and is tracking close to “Sunshine Cleaning”‘s 2009 high of $12.1 million; Cary Joji Fukunaga’s U.S. production “Sin Nombre” is one of the few foreign language bright spots, grossing $2.6 million - topped only by 2008 holdover “The Class” (and an honorable mention to “Class” distributor Sony Pictures Classics for consistency: All but two of their ten 2009 releases crossed the $1 million mark)

Loser: The Weinstein Company

Amid reports of serious debt and internal restructuring, The Weinstein Company hasn’t really enjoyed a post-“Reader” afterglow. While that film’s surprise Oscar success and eventual $34 million gross defied numerous naysayers, their three 2009 titles have barely found a combined total gross of $1 million.  “Killshot,” starring Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane and Johnny Knoxville, was in and out of theaters in 14 days - making just $18,643; Wayne Kramer’s “Crossing Over” found the distinction of becoming the Harrison Ford’s lowest grossing starring role ever, taking in only $455,654 (or roughly 1/60th of “Hollywood Homicide”); While “Fanboys,” which the company surely had high hopes for at one point, grossed only $688,529.

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A scene from “Sin Nombre.” Image courtesy of Focus Features. Winner: Coraline Though not a limited release (and thus not part of iW’s box office tracking), Focus Features’ 3-D animation hit - which grossed a stellar $75.3 million, just $8 million shy of the distributor’s record - deserves a special mention of its own, partially just to work as a counterpart to… Loser: Battle For Terra Roadside Attractions proved that 3-D doesn’t automatically mean big grosses.  Their “Battle For Terra” - an eco-friendly animated story featuring the voices of Evan Rachel Wood, Brian Cox and David Cross, found the year’s worst wide release opening with just $1,064,000 from 1,162 screens. The film ended up with just $1,620,802 - making the third lowest grossing 3-D movie of all time - behind 2006’s “Night of the Living Dead 3-D” and recent release “Call of the Wild 3-D” Winner: Films That Opened In Four Theaters Alright, so this is perhaps just a coincidence, but superstitious industry folk take note: “Sunshine Cleaning,” “Away We Go,” “The Brothers Bloom” and “The Hurt Locker” all started in four theaters. And while this may not be of much consideration, the paths they took afterwards certainly are. “Sunshine” and “Away” in particular have had nearly identical expansion patterns, slowly heading toward 500 or so screens by week four, and as noted previously, its been working out for them. Loser: Films That Opened Relatively Wide What hasn’t been working - with the lone exception of “Coraline” - is immediately going wide.  From bigger movies from studio’s specialty arms (“Adventureland,” “My Life In Ruins”), to aforementioned disasters like “Battle For Terra” and “The Informers,” opening in over 100 screens hasn’t worked out for anybody. Even “Rudo y Cursi” and “Cheri” - which debuted in 70 and 76 screens, respectively - have been relative disappointments. Gael Garcia Bernal-Diego Luna reunion “Rudo”‘s $1.8 million gross is a far cry from “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” while Michelle Pfieffer’s comeback attempt “Cheri” is struggling in expansion. —this article continues on page two— Page 1 of 3 Next Login to recommend this article » posted on July 7, 2009 Films to Snag Comments 1 zacanjus says on September 8, 2009 at 6:05pm Magonilia one was a winner 4 sure. 2 zacanjus says on August 23, 2009 at 6:32pm hey guys.. i think its good to discuss about this..cause from that we can know that what is public review.. 3 pegu says on July 9, 2009 at 9:41am paba, I don’t understand your point. The ugly truth is that the industry respects gross dollars. As someone who has been on both sides of the accounting, we all know that “cost” is voodoo magic: barter deals are made, costs are billed internally at higher rates, costs are deferred as backend points, spend has to hit X to cut a DVD deal with partner Y, costs are spread across a slate, a festival gives marketing/screenings in order to premiere the film, etc etc. We’ll never know “real cost” (soft dollar, hard dollar, opportunity cost) so we all look at box office for better or for worse. We should be glad (or disappointed) that these films are reaching the audience reflected in the dollars grossed - regardless of the intrinsic artistic merit of the film (I mean ,hey, Slumdog has grossed $300MM+ worldwide and is as good as 3 day old fish) 4 ben77 says on July 9, 2009 at 8:06am that may be true, but I dont think that whats being discussed here suggests otherwise.  its a good overview, imo 5 paba says on July 8, 2009 at 3:41pm This list is idiotic.  You are comparing films with $10 to $15 advertising campaigns (Sunshine Cleaning, Away We Go) to films with no ad budgets (The Class, Two Lovers, Easy Virtue). The SPC, Magnolia and IFC releases on the list are big winners. 6 filmhawk says on July 7, 2009 at 9:57pm Two worst ad campaigns of first six months:  RUDO Y CURSI and THE INFORMERS Not that we particularly needed another wallow in Bret Easton Ellis country, but one thing “The Informers” had was a lot of sweaty, fleshy sexiness, both in gazing at the rather impressive cast and in the evocative visual texture of its sleazy milieu.  So what was its iconic image (maybe one of the worst, most inappropriate ads of all time)?  A starkly cold, black and white (paper? plaster?) sculpture of an abstract, anonymous head. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The poorly photographed, full-length images of Bernal and Luna in harshly-lit profile on opposite sides of the ad for “Rudi y Cursi” conveyed neither the rough-and-tumble warmth of this flawed but fitfully entertaining film nor the always infectious comradery of its two leads. Login to Leave a Comment »