David Mills at Mere Comments discusses Brokeback's box office brokenness. Excerpt:
According to Newsweek magazine, once a film is nominated for Best Picture it normally means “big box-office increases.”
Last year “Million Dollar Baby” realized an 88 percent increase in theater attendance between the time it was nominated and the evening of the Academy Awards. During the same timeframe the movie “Chicago” saw a 100 percent increase, Newsweek reported.
But ever since Brokeback was nominated for Best Picture on Jan. 31, attendance for the much ballyhooed film has declined every week. After peaking at nearly 2,100 theaters Feb. 3-5, it is now playing in some 1,300 theaters and drawing fewer and fewer patrons. . . .
One person calls Brokeback a box office blunder, but that, Mills correctly notes, isn't true. The Brokeback predictions were grossly exaggerated, but the film cost only $14 million to produce. At $75 million at the box office alone (most money from films is earned in the secondary DVD and similar markets), it's a successful film, just not nearly the blockbuster that the media wanted.
