ArcticTale Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Not Much Jolt in Starbucks' Movie World
Filed under: Documentary », Box Office », Movie Marketing »
After the wild success of March of the Penguins, Paramount Classics thought they had a solid follower with Arctic Tale -- the story of a walrus and her calf and a polar bear and her cubs. They scored a promotional partner in Starbucks and waited for the success. Well, where Penguins earned millions, Variety reports that Tale has only earned $484,000 in the past month -- not quite the popularity they were expecting. (Penguins had nabbed millions in the same amount of time.)But it seems that no matter how much Starbucks can infiltrate the US, and slip a store on practically every street corner, they can't seem to beef up movie sales. Tale is their second attempt -- the first was Akeelah and the Bee, which also performed below expectations. But it's not without some effort -- for this latest film, the company installed signage and stickers, specially-branded cup sleeves, sold plush walruses, sold the film's soundtrack and had special discussions in some stores about climate change. They didn't go further, like specially-named drinks, to avoid over-commercializing the tie-in, which I have to respect. "We are careful to promote our products and projects in a tasteful manner and not to interfere with the coffeehouse experience," says Ken Lombard. The article also mentions how the stores don't have screens to air footage, but really, it's a flipping coffeehouse -- that's a good thing! Is the problem how Starbucks is promoting it, the films themselves, or something else?
Indie Weekend Box Office: '11th Hour' and 'King of Kong' Face Off
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », Box Office », Family Films », Cinematical Indie »
In a classic case of doc vs. doc, nature vs. nurture, environmental doc The 11th Hour battled video gaming doc The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters for top honors among limited engagement earners this past weekend -- and the environment won, according to Leonard Klady of Movie City News. Klady's estimates put The 11th Hour in first place with a per-screen average of $14,700 at four locations for an estimated total of $58,800 for distributor Warner Independent. Cinematical's Ryan Stewart felt it had little new information to offer but "overall, The 11th Hour does a serviceable job of preaching to the environmental choir." Rotten Tomatoes rates reviews as being 79% positive.Trailing not far behind was The King of Kong (I really don't like that needless titular verbiage). Scott Weinberg saw it at SXSW and gave it high marks; I saw it a couple of weeks later at AFI Dallas and loved it. For my money -- or quarters, if you insist -- it's one of the best movies of the year because of its keen sense of humanity; the snappy pace and non-condescending sense of humor helps too. Of the 36 reviews accumulated so far at Rotten Tomatoes, only one has been negative, giving it a 97% positive rating. The King of Kong averaged $10,300 per screen at five theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Austin; distributor Picturehouse will expand it to more cities in the coming weeks.
Nature doc Arctic Tale, which Paramount Vantage pitched to family audiences, lured very few paying customers. Klady estimated a per-screen average of just $830 during a weekend in which the picture was expanded to 227 theaters. Our own Jette Kernion was none too impressed, noting: "I think it would play just as well on a television, perhaps on DVD if your family didn't want to sit through 90 minutes of nature film all at once." That seems to be what most parents have decided to do -- wait for the DVD.
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