Juno twists the Knocked Up plot-line and adopts the Little Miss Sunshine marketing formula and brings in the money for Searchlight
Juno stars Ellen Page along with Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner
Besting 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine opening frame numbers this weekend on just 7 screens (an amazing $60,000 per screen average) was another film from Fox Searchlight called Juno. (look at this weekend’s box office here)
The 4-time Independent Spirit Award nominated film called by Slate.com “Knocked Up” from the female’s perspsective is currently at 92% Fresh on the Tomato-Meter. The film stars the much heralded Ellen Page as well as Michael Cera (Superbad), Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner and is directed by Jason Reitman (son of Ivan the Terrible and also director of “Thank You for Smoking“) and as is already well documented here on BOPsy, the script to the film was written by former stripper and 38th smartest person in Hollywood Diablo Cody.
While difficult to forecast total box office from just a 7 screen opening, it seems that Fox Searchlight are following the Little Miss Sunshine formula and allowing the mid-winter release date to benefit from the very positive reviews. Little Miss Sunshine was after all released towards the end of summer in late July 2006 and yeilded a 1,600 screen release at its widest. Look for Juno to increase to about 60 screens this weekend and to play off this weekend’s performance as the per screen average will be watched closely.
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3 Comments, Comment or Ping
Colin Boyd
Thanks for the comment over at The Big Picture. Yeah, the number per screen would surely drop if it were in more theaters. But would it be around where Atonement was, somewhere in the mid-20s per screen, if it had played 30 theaters?
I don’t think that’s a stretch. As for overall box office, I think $30’s a good estimate.
Dec 10th, 2007
admin
Colin,
I think that if Juno had opened on 30 screens, depending on the markets chosen, a per screen of $30K could have been earned. Depending on the size of the screen, the number of runs per day, etc.
Regardless, the money made in the first few weeks of a “platform release” is irrelevant, its the buzz and the positioning of the film (which Fox Searchlight does better than anyone else) which is key to ultimate box office performance (and makes the difference between a $15 million US box office and a $60 million box office)- and in the case of Juno, anything over $15 million domestic (if Marketing costs are managed well) could be seen as a success.
Dec 11th, 2007
Colin Boyd
Oh, it’ll make $15 million. If Napoleon Dynamite made, what, $40 – $50 million, this film, perfectly timed to coincide with a ton of award nominations, should platform beautifully into January (when there’s nothing else to see) and could even be around for Valentine’s Day.
Dec 12th, 2007
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