Independent Film News

Indie Box Office: Docs Rule

In case you thought the only numbers worth paying attention to were the ones in the millions, indieWIRE keeps tabs on films released on a much smaller scale. This week, it seems the films to catch are all based in fact, as documentaries nabbed the top three spots on the indieWIRE's Box Office Tracking Report (or iWBOT to you and me).

indieWIRE reports that the three top films--Stolen, Guiliani Time, and Sketches of Frank Gehry--were separated by a mere $200. But when your per-screen gross is only around $8,000, every penny counts. Stolen rightfully takes the top spot; the film is about the 1990 theft of thirteen works of art from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The film was screened in Boston this week to audiences familiar with the unsolved heist. Guiliani Time and Sketches are profiles of two influential men, the former mayor of New York City and the renowned architect, respectively.

The dissappointment on the list, available here as a table, is the poor showing by Art School Confidential, the John Malkovich vehicle that jumped from twelve screens in its first week to over seven hundred the next. While it's still one of only a dozen films on the list to gross over one million dollars, it's per-screen average fell so much that it dropped to 31st on the list. This after AMC heavily promoted it on their new Art House screens.

indieWIRE predicts another slow weekend for specialty films (none averaged five figures this week) as The DaVinci Code opens on Friday and will likely draw audiences who would otherwise go to independent films.

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Tags: indieWIRE documentaries Box Office Stolen Guiliani Time Sketches of Frank Gehry AMC Art School Confidential The DaVinci Code

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Posted by Lisa on May 17, 2006 05:05 PM
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