All I can do is sigh.
Apparently Canada’s top grossing film of 2007 wasn’t Sarah Polley’s fantastic directorial debut Away from Her or even David Cronenberg’s triumphant Eastern Promises. Yet again, highest grossing honor goes to a movie most folks outside of Quebec haven’t even heard of: Patrick Huard’s directorial debut, a family comedy entitled Les 3 P’tits Cochons (The Three Little Pigs), which has grossed close to $4.6-million since it’s August release.
One big attraction has to be Huard’s name. He’s a superstar in Quebec and fellow Canucks might recognize him as the bad ass cop in Bon Cop, Bad Cop. I thought this looked like fun but the film only played for a week in Vancouver, and at the most difficult theater to get to so I never made it out but it’s now available on DVD and should make for a fun watch – especially if you’re into keeping track of the big Canadian films.
I couldn’t find an English trailer for the film (though if you’re so inclined you can check out the French trailer here) but while looking for a trailer I also came across an excellent teaser trailer for the other big, upcoming Canadian film, Denys Arcand’s L’âge des ténèbres (Days of Darkness). Sadly, this isn’t as upcoming as I had hoped and the apparently opened on December 7th across Canada but it has yet to make an appearance in my side of the country. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to see it before it too goes to DVD. You can check out that great trailer below.
Wait. You’re telling me that Eastern Promises hasn’t grossed $4.6 million yet? I find that VERY hard to believe.
I think they are talking grosses solely in Canada.
Matt’s got it right on the ball.
According to Wikipedia:
The film has grossed $38,350,371 worldwide as of December 9, 2007 — $17,266,000 in the United States and Canada and $21,084,371 in other territories.
Go figure, it made more money abroad than it made in the NA market. Sad.
According to Playback Daily, the cumulative BO number for Eastern Promises as of December 27th was $3,145,092.
Ah. That makes sense.
Still, EP only has made $3.1 million in Canada!? What the hell is wrong with you guys up there? It’s on a fair number of screens isn’t it? According to Box Office Mojo it made almost $45 million internationally as of Nov 4 (two months ago).
Nothing wrong with us!
From memory – in Vancouver, it played, for it’s entire running time (something like 3 weeks) on ONE screen and you had to go to Downtown Vancouver to see it. It did eventually make it out to the burbs but then only for a few weeks and mostly to the rep screens.
The screening Colleen and I went to was pretty full.
Although I didn’t know about the Patrick Huard film, this doesn’t surprize me at all as like the top grossing pictures, it’s all about the audience. Francophones are more likely to go to a film in French, and guess what that means – they go to French Canadian films. Add that it’s family friendly and bam! Those numbers are going to go up.
Anglophones, have many many more options of English language films that aren’t Canadian.
Eastern Promises is in it’s 17th week here at the Tdot according to cinema clock. The screening I went to was pretty quiet even after the huge hub-bub after TIFF.
I’m used to seeing Quiet and Underpopulated Cronenberg screenings in the GTA. eXistenZ I saw in a massive theater with only about two dozen other people. Likewise for Crash. Eastern Promises was surprisngly full in the multiplex I saw it in.
Wow. I would have picked Eastern Promises to be the highest grossing Canadian film in Canada. I am guessing it is just that in the States. But then I seriously doubt Les 3 P’tits Cochons will even make it to many parts of the U. S. I doubt it will play here, for instance, unless it is at the Ragtag (our only art house left).
If the topic is about Canadian film, why link to a US website for information about Denys Arcand? Find more here: http://www.northernstars.ca/directorsal/arcand.html
Thanks for the link Ralph. I stumbled on your great site a few weeks ago – great stuff there!