Once in a blue moon, a film comes out that causes ripples in the Box Office sphere. Such a film, leaves analysts and enthusiasts, like myself, literally gasping for air in our respective basements, caves, and under-bridge dwellings. These movies are not to be taken lightly, they’re as rare and as beautiful as a supernova.
One such film has recently secured the title of a Box Office supernova, and I think you know what it is.
That’s right, it’s Christian drama biopic, I Can Only Imagine, which opened this weekend in 1,629 US cinemas.
I’m fucking with you, of course. I Can Only Imagine, based on the story of the Christian band MercyMe’s song of the same name (the best-selling Christian single of all time), is about as unremarkable as a can of baked beans. Well, maybe not unremarkable. The song spent about a billion years (or, 16 weeks) in the Hot 100 charts.
However, it’s performance this weekend, from about 2,000-less cinemas than the other films that made up the top 5 performers, is pretty bloody special. It was so special, that it made more than A Wrinkle in Time and Love, Simon (not combined though, it isn’t Black Panther). But, what really made me notice this film, was its per-cinema average gross.
Oh, what’s that? Another pointless metric we use to decide what makes a film financially successful and further distance ourselves from making Box Office analysis easy to understand? You bet.
ICOI made around $17m this weekend from only 1,629 cinemas, averaging out to $10,476 per theatre, the second-biggest wide-release opening cinema average this year (behind, of course, Black Panther’s astonishing $50.3k opening average, the 3rd biggest of all time).
But what does this mean? What it means is, ICOI opened big from… not a lot of cinemas. People were genuinely excited for this, it’s reflected in that very same cinema average. Lionsgate are probably hoping for repeat viewings in the run-up to Easter too, where the holidays and the death of a certain lad from Nazareth may bring out the Christian crowd to the cinema. Might not be possible though, what with Paul, Apostle of Christ and God’s Not Dead 3: Tokyo Drift A Light in Darkness coming out in the subsequent weeks.
How did this happen? Our Lord and saviour Jebus, of course. Such a niche subject matter would have brought out loads of Christian viewers to the cinemas and although I don’t have the data, I can imagine this opened in (and was thus targeted at) mainly Southern American states. About 80% of the viewers on the opening weekend were 35+ years old too, which makes sense when you realise the song it’s based on came out 17 years ago.
ICOI reminds me a little of another film that came out last year: How To Be a Latin Lover. It similarly opened in Spring (April, though), and in a smaller number of locations (1,118 cinemas), but with a $10,959 cinema average from a $12.3m opening. The reason for such a stellar opening average? The Hispanic leads (Salma Hayek & Eugenio Derbez) and its subject matter really hit it off with the targeted demographic (89% of the viewers on the opening weekend were Hispanic). That’s pretty much the only similarity, though. Please don’t show your avidly-Christian gran Latin Lover.
She just won’t be able to deal with another Box Office supernova.
Seeing Digits 