Fox Searchlight has a huge hit on their hands with Juno. The film grossed $3.285 million on 998 screens on Friday night (December 28th). I hate to say I told you so, but… well, I told you so. Juno is connecting with mainstream America. The film was given the patented platform release that we’ve grown to expect from Searchlight, becoming the 31st biggest per screen opening of all time. The film has an estimated $18.6 million take, and has yet to expand to over 1,000 screens. The latest step in the platform happened on Tuesday (Christmas), where the film went from 300 to 998 screens. As you can see, Juno has only begun to stretch its legs.
The $3.2 million Friday night number is significant because it might be the second biggest Friday night in independent film history. Here is a look at some of the best Friday’s in recent “Indie” Film History:
Blair Witch Project - around $8.234 million on 1,101 screens
Juno - $3.285 on 998 screens
No Country - $3.1 million on 860 screens
My Big Fat Greek Wedding - $3.044 million on 1764 screens
Pulp fiction - $2.9 million on 338 screens
Crouching Tiger - $2.3 million on 693 screens
Hot Fuzz - $2.118 on 825 screens
Little Miss Sunshine’s - $2.028 million on 1430 screens
Brokeback Mountain - $2.019 million
Sideways - $1.69 million on 1694 screens
Garden State - around $0.9 million on 813 screens
Napoleon Dynamite - $0.7 million on 921 screens
I don’t have access to all the numbers, so maybe our crackjack Box Office reporter Steve Mason will follow up on this, or maybe someone out there has the definitive answer. But as far as I can tell, Juno has pulled the second biggest Friday night box office in “Indie” Film history.
Also note: While The Passion of the Christ is technically an independent film, it opened wide on over 3,000 screens. Technically Star Wars Episode I is also an independent film, possibly the biggest independent film ever made. For this reason, I have not included wide releases of this nature in this discussion.
January 1st, 2008 at 6:49 pm
You know what’s funny Peter? In a sad, awful and pathetic way?
This is an honest example of how terrible the film industry is in America now. It used to be that foreign countries, or countries abroad, such as Asia would take the general storylines of films and movies being made, in America, and replicate them in their own way to possibly make money.
Now it has become reverse, the industry is out of original ideas and are stealing stories not only from past films that did not need to be remade, but from countries who used to do the above mentioned.
It’s sad, really sad. And not only that, but half of the ignorant twits who pay money to see these re-makes don’t even know they’re remakes.
What’s next on the agenda? Or should I say, what country is next to steal from? Which director are they going to discredit next, or ignore?
I hate to admit it, but this frankly is one of the main reasons why I don’t have any sympathy, nor support for the WGA strike. The majority of these people have been dishing out piles of the worst smelling shit on the face of the globe - and passing it off as storytelling or art.
General IQ’s have dropped, and there hasn’t been shit to watch on TV since Chris Carter decided to back a X-Files movie.
I truly think it’s unfortunate that it just so happens a few amazing writers are wrapped into the guild, but somehow it’s been accepted that the entire guild consists of these types of writers when they’re few and far between. A good writer is hard to come by, and in all actuality, the best writers are directors (but this is a matter of opinion).
Something needs to happen, and it needs to happen soon. New blood needs to weed out all the hacks, all the bullshit big-money dealers, small-time ‘big ideas for big money’ makers, and the overall monopoly the studios have on the industry. There are tons of brilliant artist out there that are un-noticed, under appreciated and under supported. Granted, there are a lot of terrible ones too, but frankly, who are the big wigs making the decisions as to what is and what isn’t good? Especially when the amount of garbage put on display that people over-pay to see is the majority of the ‘major studio’ releases in the past years.
It’s perplexing, confusing and most of all it’s sad. Are we ever going to have another golden-age? God I hope so…and soon.
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:36 am
Hear hear!!! And when something does come along that’s fresh and new and actually good, it usually ends up cancelled cuz the average memeber of the “viewing public” is too stupid to understand it.
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
i contributed at least $30 of that money, going three times this past week (i live in the boonies, near princeton, nj). i’m so glad the movie did so well, it was flipping sweet.
in response to Jay– what. the. hell. i understand your point, and agree that unoriginality is a fairly major problem in the movie industry, but a. juno has NOTHING to do with any other movie (the jenny, juno thing was debunked, and yes, it was called junebug, but had nothing to do with any of that), and b. criticizing modern filmmakers for remaking movies is like telling tribute bands to stop playing covers. there isn’t anything wrong with using what you know is a great story, or being inspired by someone else’s work to try it yourself. yeah, a few of t hem are cash-ins (like the eye), but if we’re not going to top j- or k-horror with original stories and characters, why not try to top it with workable sources? and, god, just because the american movie scene is slowly losing financial and conceptual ground doesn’t mean ALL MOVIES SUCK EVER. there are still good movies coming out of the US and other countries too- yeah, we are not the only nation with video cameras and ideas! be at least a little open-minded–things aren’t totally awful, and if somebody does something besides having your defeatist, somewhat absurd attitude, things could get even better. calm down, and possibly shove off. and be open to new things. some commercial films aren’t even that bad.
February 27th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
How far back are you talking? Because foreign countries had tariffs on the imports of American movies. This was to boost nationalism because American movies were so popular. Auteurs watched smuggled in copies and made homages to them with their own spin. It was the same here in the U.S. We used to block foreign films.
Hollywoods just getting too desperate because people aren’t watching movies as much. They’re too conservative and unwilling to spend movies on new untested ideas
Anyways, the first comment has nothing to do with the article. This is great news and I hope to have a repeat of the early-mid nineties when young indie films were popular. Even the Coen Bros. are back.