The Australian: Penguin passion leaves Cruise in box office cold — No scientologists were injured while making this film.
Curiously Peter Guber predicted something like this would happen this summer: an unexpected hit out of nowhere.
LOS ANGELES: Tom Cruise is being savaged at the US box office by a troupe of lovelorn birds.
March of the Penguins, a low-budget wildlife film about the mating habits of the emperor penguin, is promising to be the surprise hit of the northern summer after pulling in larger audiences at the 20 cinemas where it has been shown than Cruise’s War of the Worlds and Batman Begins combined. It has proved so popular in its first two weeks that it was opening at 350 others this weekend.
“This film is awesome,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which analyses ticket-buying habits for Los Angeles studios. “No one saw it coming and where it’s been released so far it’s out-performing all the big boys. It’s all down to word of mouth rather than studio hype.”
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*Cool* summer flick.
Duh! If you have to choose between an overused franchise, a lame remake of a classic sci-fi flic and a movie about some birds in tuxedoes doing it wich one would you choose?
But this always happens. This isn’t real big news. Anytime an art house flic (or documentary) gets decent word of mouth, the few places it plays at get huge box office receipts. Those theaters cater specifically to this type of flic, so people have to go there and usually are more away of this type of movie.
Now, it’ll start getting released to more mass market friendly venues, and you’ll see a steep drop in the Per Screen figures. More places to see it means the same money gets split wider. It might just make more money in the end this way, though.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Any movie that savages Tom “I’m a Kook” Cruise or his teenaged bride (or his SciFi pseudoreligion) is alright by me. I’m going to see it tomorrow.
Of course—penguins are fantastic creatures. Tom Cruise is just another over paid, perpetually whiney celebrity! 🙂