In so-called specialty box office… 2 indie films of note that opened over the weekend.
First – The Obama Effect, directed by Charles S. Dutton (he also stars it by the way), and co-stars Vanessa Bell Calloway, Katt Williams, Megan Good, Wesley Jonathan and Glynn Turman. It opened in limited release in the USA (25 screens to be exact), and if you saw it over the weekend, I'd like to know what you thought of it. So please share in the comments section.
The social media campaign for it was quite relentless, from my POV, as there likely wasn't much of a marketing budget.
So how did it do? Not that great unfortunately. It grossed $73,000, which is a healthy figure for a *small* film release like this; but the telling figure is the per-screen average, which, in this case was $2,900. Not very promising for an opening weekend, when you want the per screen averages to be the highest, compared to the rest of the film's theatrical run. It's on opening weekend when audience turnout is typically the strongest.
Word of mouth is what will now carry the film into successive weeks/weekends, which is partly why I'm very interested in what you all who saw it, think of it, to get some idea of what it might do overall.
Secondly, Ballplayer: Pelotero – a documentary film that provides a never before seen look inside the world of Major League Baseball (MLB) training camps in the Dominican Republic – which I did see a few weeks ago, and reviewed on this site. In short, I thought it was well-done.
How did it do? Not as well as The Obama Effect, grossing just over $20,000 on 10 screens nationwide (USA), for a per screen average of just over $2,000 which is even less than that of The Obama Effect.
Too bad. It's a really good documentary; very informative and eye-opening, and I strongly recommend it if it's playing in your neck of the woods.
As for director Julia Ivanova's wonderful award-winning documentary Family Portrait in Black and White, its weekend box office figures aren't available yet, so I can't tell you how well it did. I also did see it a little bit ago. It's riveting viewing and recommended as well.
