Per Theater Chart: Cleaning House

January 25, 2011

There's a bit of a controversy on the per theater chart with The Housemaid and Barney's Version in position to claim top spot. The latter made $143,000 in 16 theaters for an average of $8,938, in the United States. Adding it what it made in Canada, and it earned almost $500,000 in 77 theaters for an average of $6,217. That was a great weekend, but only third best on the chart. The winner was The Housemaid with an average of $8,335 in two theaters. This suggests it will be able to find more theaters willing to play it, but it is unlikely that it will expand significantly.

Most of the rest of the new limited releases were competitive with The Company Men being the best of the rest. It earned an average of $6,111 in more than 100 theaters. Given its theater count, that's a very strong start. Meanwhile, The Woodmans earned $5,874 in one theater over the weekend and $9,560 since Wednesday. Also impressive. Mumbai Diaries earned an average of $4,624 in 79 theaters, which should please the distributor. The Way Back, on the other hand, struggled with $1.2 million in 678 theaters for an average of $1,782. It will likely disappear quite quickly.

This past week also saw milestones reached for a few Per Theater Charts alumni:

• Barney's Version crossed $1 million, if you include its run in Canada. If it can expand in the United States, it could go really far. However, that depends heavily on Paul Giamatti picking up an Oscar nod.
• Blue Valentine topped $4 million over the weekend and it might get to $5 million, but that's as far as it will go.
• The King's Speech surpassed $50 million very early in the weekend and it is already nearing $60 million. It has now earned more than such saturation level releases as Life as We Know It and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, and it is far from done.
• The latest milestone for Black Swan was $80 million, which is cleared over the weekend. This puts it just ahead of Unstoppable and just behind Paranormal Activity 2.

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Theater Averages, Barney's Version, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, The Company Men, The King’s Speech, The Way Back, The Woodmans, Hanyo, Dhobi Ghat