barnesgonzo: Prisoners in charge at US box office as Emmys 2013 keeps moviegoers home

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Prisoners in charge at US box office as Emmys 2013 keeps moviegoers home

Five things we learned at US cinemas this week, as the Emmys ate our audience and a pimped-up Wizard of Oz shows left-field distribution has benefits

• Review of Prisoners at Toronto film festival
• Interview with Jake Gyllenhaal by Paul MacInnes

1. TV dwarfs movies

One of the reasons why box office for the top 12 movies was down around 16% compared to last weekend was 22 September's 65th Emmy awards. The broadcast always sucks a large portion of viewers away from theatres. Highlights included tributes to the late James Gandolfini and Glee star Cory Monteith, plus Elton John performing at his first Emmys in honour of the late Liberace. Last year's Emmys drew an average of 13.2 million viewers, up 6% from 2011.

2. Prisoners capitalises on festival success

While there is no reason why a crime thriller would not prosper at the box office, particularly in the early days of autumn, Warner Brothers took a gamble to slot in Prisoners shortly after two prestige premieres at Telluride and Toronto. The gambit paid off handsomely. French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve's child abduction story earned rave reviews and rode into town with no real competition at the box office. The deeply unsettling movie deserves to rank alongside the likes of Seven and The Silence of the Lambs and may well get awards attention in the coming months. Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal star as a father of a missing child and a detective blighted by a perfect track record and facial tics.

3. Jakes Gyllenhaal owns the late September slot

The Prisoners star has returned to the top of the US charts exactly one year after his last movie debuted at No 1. End of Watch opened over the 21-23 September 2012 session on $13.2m (£8.2m). With several movies in pre- and post-production, it's hard to predict when and in what movie we will next see Gyllenhaal. He played a doppelganger in Denis Villeneuve's other Toronto premiere, Enemy, and distributor A24 is pursuing US rights, so that could be the next release. Gyllenhaal will shortly start work on Nightcrawler as a freelance crime reporter in LA, so don't count that one out of a 2014 release once buyers get the chance to see it. Or it could be David O Russell's long-in-the-works rom-com Nailed, although at time of writing there was still no word on when (or if) this would materialise. Gyllenhaal has been an inconsistent box office performer. His biggest US hits are The Day After Tomorrow on $187m, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time on $91m, Brokeback Mountain on $83m and Source Code on $54m. Zodiac, the closest in tone to Prisoners, grossed $34m.

4. The rise of bespoke distribution

We've seen it recently with the extraordinary performance of the Spanish-language Instructions Not Included, which has grossed $34.3m (£21.3m) in three weeks, and now Warner Bros and Imax have had a crack at counter-programming. The big-screen specialist Imax just released a pimped-up version of Warner Bros' The Wizard of Oz (remastered and now in 3D) on 318 screens for an exclusive one-week engagement and benefited from a mild session to arrive in ninth place on a little over $3m (£1.8m). Proof again that at the right time, a left-field release can hold its own in the top 10.

5. Rush revs up slowly

Universal Pictures has opted for a cautiously confident strategy on Ron Howard's new movie, his first independent production that just brought the house down at its North American premiere in Toronto. UK audiences will be familiar with the story about the rivalry between 1970s Formula One racing icons James Hunt and Niki Lauda and the movie climbed up to No 1 in its second weekend in the UK through StudioCanal. F1 is not such a big deal in the US, where Nascar is the motor racing sport of choice, so the studio's decision to launch Rush in four theatres is smart. The movie grossed $200,000 (£124,000) for a superb $50,000 (£31,000) per-site average and word of mouth will be frothy on Chris Hemsworth's performance as Hunt and Daniel Brühl's stunning portrayal of Lauda ahead of this week's expansion into 2,200 theatres.