Other Crap

Weekend Box Office Results, October 7-9, 2005. Not much change from Friday's report.

• The chixploitation flick, In Her Shoes, disappointed.
• As I predicted Tuesday, the lowbrow comedy, Waiting ..., did far better than expected.
• The film I never heard of, Gospel, totally kicked ass. It averaged $8200 per screen compared to $4400 for the week's #1 film, Wallace and Gromit (which exceeded expectations, by the way.) The black-white ratio of Gospel's audience was greater than 5 to 1. The marketing was highly targeted - at African-American church groups.
• If I were a filmmaker and had no aspiration other than profit, I'd be making a devout, inspiring prequel to The Passion of the Christ. Call it The Birth of the Christ and open it on Christmas 2006.
• Oscar hopeful update: Clooney's Murrow movie raked in $38,000 per screen, but was only on 11 screens. Capote pulled in $17,000 per screen on 24 screens. They both made the top twenty!
• Overall, the week was down about 10% from last year, which had the blockbusting Shark Tale at the top and a strong opening from Friday Night Lights.