Josiah asked me about the breakdown of revenues according to theater counts, and I thought I'd post those numbers up here, too. The Passion appeared on approximately 700 fewer theaters than LoTR, yet grossed more in five days by a margin of $1 million. When you consider the fact that LoTR appears to have had the advantage, this is incredible. For instance, LoTR was PG-13; Passion was R. LoTR benefited enormously from the two previous movies, as well as being released at Christmas where kids are not in school. Passion was embroiled in controversy for five to six months, which helped market it in the same way that the two previous LoTR did for Return of the King, but it was also dealing with schooldays, as well as other things that probably make February, in general, a far less bankable month than summer and Christman weekends (I just can't think of them offhand). And Jeannette points out the season of Lent probably is driving some of this, too. I agree with her on that, and I expect that Easter will also be a big date for the way in which the church season generates interest in a certain kind of subject matter. Still, it's the overall delivery of the film that - abstracting from the controversy and the craft of the film - that is what I think is worth noticing. They used grassroots campaigning, carefully selected prescreenings among church leaders and conservative pundits, and a release strategy that took advantage of Lent to help drive this movie. This allowed them to forego spending on marketing. They spent $15 million on marketing, while Return of the King spent $50 million. Yet, in the end, the effect was the same - everyone was talking about this film. Anyway, here are those numbers:
Passion: it opened in 3,006 theaters. It was averaging $8,800 per theater for Wednesday, $4,917 for Thursday, $7,500 for Friday, $10,800 for Saturday, and $9,150 for Sunday.
Revenue per theater, daily
Return of the King: it opened on 3,703 theaters. It was averaging lower revenue per theater: $9,000 for the opening Wednesday, $4500 for Thursday, $5900 for Friday, $7400 for Saturday, and $6200 for Sunday
Spiderman: it opened in 3,615 theaters. It was averaging the following revenue per theater: $10,091 for Friday, $12,067 for Saturday, $8,801 for Sunday, $3,052 for Monday, and $2,756 for Tuesday.
Total Averages after five days
The Passion: $41,000 per theater
LoTR: $33,513 per theater
Spiderman: $37,576 per theater
I think that the interesting figure was the dollar amount for Sunday, which, from what I read, was stronger than conventional wisdom expected. Of course, conventional wisdom doesn't account for all of the Christians who hardly ever go to the theater, and particularly not on a Sunday.
The marketing of the movie was brilliant, though it does kind of disturb me the way that so many pastors allowed themselved to become cogs in the marketing machine. Pastors of several of the largest evangelical churches in my area were, as part of the marketing process, invited to Chicago to see an rough cut of the film, which they then of course came back and endorsed to their congregations who promptly bought out entire screenings so the church could all go and see it. The local paper talked to those ministers who were shown the rough cut, and they talked about what a great privilege it was to be one of the people who were invited to see it, to which the cynical part of me says that no, it wasn't a privilege, it was just that you were the pastor of a big church could have a big influence on ticket sales. Then the editor of the local paper, who happens to be a member of one of those churches goes and writes a glowing review of the movie in the Sunday editorial page, after going to the private screening that his church paid for, thus giving the movie the endorsement of our notoriously liberal paper, fueling even more ticket sales. Ok, I'll stop being such a cynic.
Posted by: kathryn at March 2, 2004 02:27 AM