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EXCLUSIVE: Fox Searchlight and Participant Media just did with a low-budget film what several major studios can’t right now with high-budget tenpoles: it has an early summer hit. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which is being lauded as ‘The Avengers for grown ups’ passed $100M worldwide despite playing in relatively few theaters. It is the highest grossing specialty film of 2012 and has become the 7th highest grossing film for Fox Searchlight Pictures. Its domestic cume is expected to reach $20.5M this Friday after its platform release on May 4th, and its foreign cume is $81.2M after opening there in February.
The well-reviewed adult film is a success story because of a great pedigree, director, and cast. The comic/romantic/poignant adventure at an unexpected Indian resort for seven UK pensioners is directed by John Madden (Shakespeare In Love) and stars Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup and Dev Patel. It’s from a script by Ol Parker and based on the novel These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach. The producers are Graham Broadbent and Peter Czernin of Blueprint Pictures. It held its London world premiere in February and marks the 4th best international grossing film for Fox Searchlight, behind only Black Swan ($224.6M), The Full Monty ($212M), and The Descendants ($93.2M). “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel continues to perform beyond our wildest expectations,” Utley and GIlula said in a statement to Deadline. Participant Media CEO Jim Berk stated, “We are thrilled that this wonderful film is captivating audiences everywhere.”
Domestically, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was still only playing in 1,233 theaters nationally after its 4th weekend. Six of those Top 10 grossing theaters were in regional cities including Denver, St. Louis, Atlanta and Minneapolis — not NYC or LA. Which is why Fox Searchlight boasts how the film’s playability has gone well beyond the established ‘art and specialty’ markets. Even the 354 holdover theaters declined only –12% from the third weekend despite a lot of competition. And the top 100 theaters last weekend included new engagements in Albuquerque, Knoxville, Wichita, Louisville, Fresno, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Memphis, Nashville, and Bend, Oregon. For the past 3 weeks, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has starred among the Top 10 grossing films for the past three weeks despite reeling in far fewer plays than the other films. This past weekend it ranked #8 even though all of the higher grossing films had runs in 2 to 3 times the number of theaters – but it boasted the #3 per-theater-average after only Men In Black 3 and Marvel’s The Avengers. This coming weekend, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel expands to approximately 1280 theaters.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Baby Boomers still have the money.
Yea they do and I would love to go with my mom if it will just come to my town
So good to see a film for adults is making money. More films like this please?
Yes, yes more please. Enough of the mindless crap.
Do you think it’s just way too much for Hollywood to understand that the entire world is starving for a movie with character actors, that can – act – and for stories that are well written???!!! God when will they get it???
So sick of blockbusters and franchises and all the other bs these 12 year old men want to produce.
So here you go boys – a movie with just actors and words that made money. Go figure.
What’s that you say? People in flyover states are paying money to see a movie?! OMG, this is a miracle!
Oh wait, this has been happening forever, and now perhaps studios will take notice.
What a total surprise! NO ONE here in Hollywood saw this coming!
How could anyone have guessed that a movie with a great script, great cast, great director, excellent word of mouth, that speaks to its audience like adults would succeed?!
Maybe some things are better left a mystery.
Anyway, gotta get back to this film adaptation of the card game Uno we’re tent-poling in June 2013! I’ve got Selena Gomez’ people on hold. She’s in talks to play the “Skip” card! Fingers crossed!
Great post! You made my morning. Funny and true!
I would love to see what you write for screenplays! That was the funniest and most true response!! I agree wholeheartedly, it is all about a great cast of good actors and a great script!! Saaw the movie and loved it as well. Not rocket science at all and people are asking for just that : good stories. Thanks for summing it up perfectly and giving me a laugh out loud read.
Karen
“Like”
‘BEMH’ is an excellent film. It is also a very English one in every aspect. Just a personal opinion: while Hollywood can do ‘Avengers’ (and *cough* ‘John Carter’), the studio system cannot make films like this and, I think, nor does it want to since the business model is so entirely different. After all, how many Happy Meals, plushies and theme park rides can ‘BEMH’ sell? Viewed on a ROI basis, though, and wow! Wish I had a piece of that! What scares me rigid here is the thought of an all-star Hollywood remake. Don’t. Just, don’t.
I think we know why Fox Searchlight is one of the few survivors of the “faux indie” purge the studios went through a few years ago. Too many of the other studios’ independent divisions were set up with orders to land award nominations and critical praise for their corporate masters, while Searchlight was ordered to make smaller independent and “art house” movies into a viable business.
It seems to have worked out well for them.
Just goes to show you , if you make a good film people will find it.and I agree there should be more films like this
Hooray for Pete Czernin! Hooray for Buffy and Kathy — the marketing team over at Participant!! All class acts who do great work!
Can someone explain to me how it is that I saw this movie on HBO? Or one of the premium channels, I can’t remember which.
The 78-million strong Baby Boomer generation is attaining retirement age at the rate of 10,000 per day and will continue to do so for the next 19 years. Anyone between the ages of 46 and 64 are considered to be a part of the boomer generation.
Many in this demographic 55+ are active, vital, educated and affluent. Studies show that Boomers control over 80% of personal financial assets and more than 50% of discretionary spending power. They are responsible for more than 75% of all leisure travel.
The largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind is occuring and will continue to occur over the next decade as the elderly parents die and bequeath baby boomer children thier inheritance.
Media markets, advertisers, execuitve producers may want to broaden their focus to those 55 and up, as they are largely ignored in media plans; yet they have, enjoy and control much of the weath in the US.
Mature audiences enjoy insightful, humorous and poignant movies. This audience wants respectful, intelligent, heart-felt televison programs and movies, even on-demand via hulu, xfinity, netflix etc)
How corny! How wholesome! What??? It’s not EDGY? It’s not cynical? It’s not slutty?
It’s NOT a young man stuffing bacon-laden foods into his mouth, enough to feed a Brunei village for a year, while young large-breasted girls watch. It’s NOT a Kardashian. It’s NOT someone being whacked by a rubber ball then falling into water, bruised and humiliated.
Perhaps it’s time to consider going back to real story telling where characters have character, talent and a true arc and where sarcasm (or who someone is “hooking up” with) isn’t the basis for the premise of the program.
There is hope, though not necessarily for Hollywood. Just saw the indie Cloudburst last night. Wow! Olympia Dukakis delivers the best female kickass character of the year. A film about people over 50 that isn’t dripping with sentimentality. Very refreshing.
Fox Searchlight proves – yet again – that smart marketing combined with the right quality product can always deliver results. This is without the DVD market having kicked in in which the film will be a must for a lot of people. “The Avengers” isn’t for everybody. This will always be the case.
Low and behold there is a market for people outside the sacrosanct 19-49 age bracket, and a robust one, too. Will the networks take note?
Couldn’t agree more, and further with people living longer a whole new market is emerging.
Great film! Glad it is exceeding expectations. @amy – I fall within the 19-49 demo, but I have not seen The Avengers yet (though I plan on it). A solid film on a Saturday night can be a better alternative to crowded summer blockbuster films.
With Men in Black on 3 screens and The Avengers on 2, this is not a surprise. Thank goodness for films like this!
Agreed! My friends and I are early 30s and we love indie character based films. Most people would if more were made available.
I know a lot of people who went to see this *specifically* because of Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.
Now they’re all sweet on Bill Nighy and Ronald Pickup.
What wasn’t to like about this movie? The cast is spectacular, the scenery is colorful, the music is wonderful, the young Indian players are delightful. Even the Indian cliches are counterbalanced by showing a bit of modern India too.
Hollywood studios will learn the same thing from this success that they learned from ‘Gran Torino’ and ‘The Bucket List’… absolutely nothing.
They’ll chalk it up as some sort of fluke, ignore the fact that the baby boomers are under-served, and go back to making movies targeted at the 15-25 year olds who are more likely to pirate a film than a buy a ticket for one.
When I asked my 70-something Mom what she wanted to do for Mother’s Day this year she told me she wanted to see this movie.
I never even heard of the title. I had zero pre-awareness of this film, but whoever did the marketing on this was a genius. Mom knew all about it before it even opened and was excited to see it. I was dreading taking her to it as I had a feeling it was going to be excruciating, but I ended up loving the movie. It’s very entertaining and has some very solid, albeit predictable, performances in it. That said, this is a good movie and it has a place and deserves all the success it gets.
I wish studios would look at this and make a more diverse slate. We don’t need 10 movies a year each dealing with robots, aliens or vampires.
If the films are good, there’s a market for everything and smart execs will know they can risk modest budgest on these kind of films in the hopes of scoring a modest hit.
Oh and the other movie my 70-something Mom wants to go see? Ted. She’s never even watched Family Guy, but she saw that trailer and is dying to see it. Watch out for that one.
Judi Dench is the true queen of the boxoffice.
Is there any talk about possible Oscar nominations?
Wonderful reviews and praises for a film we adults can enjoy. Nothing does better to ensure success of a film that to cast actors who can act. Looking forward to seeing Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy…..more please
REALLY? I am curious what the bottom line is for this movie and it’s investers.