Comparison between 2 movies for booking.

One thing I keep mentioning is how the attendance and hence booking patterns for Western Film are different from almost any other theatre. To illustrate this I'm going to compare two films.

FAST AND FURIOUS- $70 million dollar opening (biggest April opening ever), $153 million total box office, 4th in a series, some fairly well known names although Vin Diesel and Paul Walker aren't as big as they used to be. High awareness. Did about $500 for the week at Western Film which is quite low for us.

SUNSHINE CLEANING-$219,000 opening in 4 theatres, $11 million total, original, not a sequel or remake, some lesser but still well known names but on the way up (Amy Adams, Emily Blunt). Low awareness. Did almost $800 for the week, still low but not bad.

Seems counter intuitive doesn't it? This is a general pattern at Western Film although it does have exceptions. The Dark Knight was still one of the highest grossing films at Western Film.

There's several reasons I think this occurs-
For many movies the audience who wants to see them go see them first run, this is why Western Film doesn't play horror films and most smaller action films. In many cases they don't want to wait until WF plays the film even if we are cheaper.

Part of it is timing, it depends on the time of year the film plays.

Smaller movies aimed at adults can do well here. Adults are more likely be willing to wait and/or want to see it for less money. Western Film is also less busy and crowded. Although I wouldn't mind seeing that change.

Smaller films often don't play in theatres much. Sunshine played for a couple weeks at the Westmount, F&F played at all the theatres in the city.

By the time WF gets a film word of mouth has spread and if it's bad it will affect us. The opposite effect can occur with good word of mouth for the smaller films that start in the bigger cities then spread out from there.

Being a University theatre our primary market is a more intellectual and discriminating group. They are more likely to take a chance on something that looks different. They are also less likely to seek out out only escapist fare.

The best example I can give is Hotel Rwanda. It was the biggest grossing movie at WF the year it came out however it did only $20 million in overall box office.