Wednesday 23 March 2011

Every silver lining

What a lovely weekend that was.  Spring arrived in a major way, a couple of days before its official start date.  The sun shone, the birds sang and the cherry blossomed.  All of which was seriously irritating if you had a new movie opening.

Chalet Girl opened last weekend and became that week’s highest new entry.  Yay.  But overall admissions were considerably down on the previous weekend, due in large part to the ‘if it’s sunny people tend to want to be outside mowing the lawn rather than sweating in a dark cinema’ principle.  Suddenly, as the line from the movie goes, not so yay.

4th is great, behind three fairly chunky, wide-release studio movies.  Highest new entry is also great – have some of that McConaughey.  A million bucks sounds big and the screen average was respectable.  But, however you spin it, the numbers weren’t what we might have hoped for.  Of the 400,000 buttocks we were hoping to entice into our lovely padded seats, we maybe only got half that number.

It’s all relative and, relative to others, we did fine.  And in hindsight, opening a ski season movie as the daffodils are blooming and the short sleeves are appearing, was a little risky.  But there are a thousand and one reasons why we chose that date (I outlined some of those on an earlier post that I was then asked to take down, because it exposed a bit too much of the sausage-making process for some people’s liking).  And what’s done is done.

The good news is threefold.  Firstly, we got off to a start, and we can build from that.  Secondly, we have ‘held onto our screens’ for next weekend.  With not much looming in the way of big releases this Friday (Momentum’s ‘Limitless’, as well as ‘The Eagle’ and something about turtles) the cinema owners clearly think that Chalet Girl still has some legs, and some audience to find.  So we still have a certain amount of ‘penetration’, as the distribution lingo has it.

Thirdly, and most importantly, people are loving our movie.  Search for “Chalet Girl” on Twitter, as I have been doing a lot of late, and you will read some incredibly encouraging and lovely responses from people have been to see the movie.  They group into the ‘Ed Westwick is fit’ category, the ‘better than I expected’ category and, of course, the ‘I thought it was a pile of sh1t’ category, on a ratio of about 60:30:10.  Which isn’t bad, I reckon.

So now we need to bow down and make a votive offering at the altar of WOM.  That’s Word of Mouth, to the uninitiated.  Our fate is now largely out of our hands.  Yes, we can keep banging the drum, working the PR, running the ads.  But either people are going to tell their mates that Chalet Girl rocks and they should go and see it, or they aren’t.  If they do, we could rumble on for a few more weeks.  If they don’t, we might be out of cinemas before school holidays kick in.  Which would be a shame.

So tell your mates.  And pray to WOM.  And pray for rain.

Right, I’m off to mow the lawn.

 

Box Office figures from Screen International:

 

UK/IRELAND

Three-day weekend March 18-20, 2011

 

Rank

Film/Origin/Distributor

Week

3-day gross
£

3-day gross
$

Sites

Site avg $

3-day change

Total gross $ to 
20 Mar 2011

1(2)

Rango (US) Paramount Pictures International

3

1,045,326

1,698,060

470

3,613

-32

8,155,856

2(1)

Battle: Los Angeles (US) Sony Pictures Releasing International

2

874,265

1,420,184

417

3,406

-51

5,611,355

3(3)

Unknown (UK, Ger, Fr, Can, Jap, US) Optimum Releasing

3

775,576

1,259,870

367

3,433

-25

7,304,250

4(-)

Chalet Girl (UK, Ger, Aust) Paramount Pictures International

NEW

677,716

1,100,903

381

2,890

-

1,100,903

5(-)

The Lincoln Lawyer (US) Entertainment Film Distributors

NEW

571,836

928,908

378

2,457

-

928,908

6(5)

Hall Pass (US) Warner Bros

2

556,292

903,658

395

2,288

-38

3,238,601

7(-)

Anuvahood (UK) Revolver

NEW

536,818

872,024

149

5,853

-

872,024

8(4)

The Adjustment Bureau (US) Universal Pictures International

3

532,325

864,725

390

2,217

-42

6,653,741

9(6)

The King's Speech (UK, Aus) Momentum Pictures

11

350,417

569,228

407

1,399

-49

71,494,168

10(8)

Gnomeo & Juliet (UK, US) Entertainment One (eOne) Films International

6

295,023

479,245

455

1,053

-47

24,572,963

11(7)

Paul (Sp, Fr, US, UK) Universal Pictures International

5

289,621

470,469

296

1,589

-48

22,382,044

12(-)

Submarine (UK, US) Optimum Releasing

NEW

244,476

397,135

60

6,619

-

397,135

13(10)

West Is West (UK) Icon Film Distribution

4

138,422

224,857

102

2,204

-44

3,847,378

14(11)

Yogi Bear (US, NZ) Warner Bros

6

113,301

184,050

326

565

-51

14,011,784

15(-)

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (US, Sp) Warner Bros

NEW

112,168

182,209

101

1,804

-

182,209

16(14)

Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (US) 20th Century Fox

5

112,025

181,977

201

905

-43

8,242,609

17(12)

Tangled (US) Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International

8

97,906

159,042

285

558

-56

32,637,242

18(9)

Fair Game (US, ) Entertainment One (eOne) Films International

2

93,128

151,280

152

995

-69

949,834

19(13)

True Grit (US) Paramount Pictures International

6

84,560

137,362

137

1,003

-60

13,256,821

20(15)

I Am Number Four (US) Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International

4

64,721

105,135

119

883

-60

4,997,235

 

2 comments:

  1. Yet again wonderful post Mr Williams!
    I love to read about the sausage-making process, it's very informative. :-)
    I'll be doing my special rain dance, who knows it might work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. hahah - love the 'highlighted' 400,000 buttocks! he he he. Great to meet you last night, promise we're off on Monday to see the film. If it counts - I've just watched the trailer again.

    Stats are FAB, Well done you.
    Cheers - Kez & Dave @ the Yewie (aka 3 butt cheeked pub people)

    ReplyDelete