Gay cowboys at US movie summit
The Ang Lee film, which follows the 20-year forbidden romance between two roughneck ranch hands, earned €11,488 per theatre, compared with €7,861 for weekend winner King Kong and €6,948 for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The big question is whether Brokeback can maintain its momentum as it moves from selected cities, where audiences are receptive to the subject matter, to suburbs far and wide, where that might not be the case.
Early numbers - and early awards buzz - establish the picture’s staying power, industry insiders say. Brokeback earned a leading seven Golden Globe nominations.
“It delivered very strong growth in what is truly a highly unforgiving, competitive, cruel market at this Christmas period,” said Jack Foley, president of theatrical distribution for Focus Features. “It showed it has breadth beyond the gay community.”
Distributors planned to roll out the film slowly. It opened in just six cinemas, where it earned an “unprecedented” €92,079 per venue.
Ted Baehr, who reviews films for the Christian Film & Television Commission, called the film “abhorrent” and “twisted, laughable, frustrating and boring neo-Marxist homosexual propaganda” in a review on the commission’s website.
