RENT's Weekend Box Office — Page 2

With the enormous crush of holiday releases, it's doubtful Rent will be playing on more than 100 screens two weeks from now.

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It's been moved into a smaller, crappier auditorium at my local theatre.

I wonder what reprecussions this will have for greenlighting a Hairspray movie? Then again they were looking at big names for that though.
And Dreamgirls has Beyonce...

I don't think Producers, Dreamgirls, or Hairspray will have a hard time finding an audience. RENT is just a hard sell no matter what. Even if they had Justin Timberlake in it, its hard to sell a movie about Gay People & AIDS. I think it would have done better if it was shot on a smaller budget and released maybe by an indie-film company. If it was more artistically done and filmed.

It shows you how small we Broadway fans are in the grand scheme of things. As many passionate Rentheads as there are buying up tickets in droves... t'ain't a drop in the bucket.

Kinda humbling.

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Well... somebody's not seeing it somewhere.

These numbers are what they are.

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I knew it would fall, but this is still surprising. I wonder if the studio -- perhaps even Columbus -- is wishing they'd put Timberlake et al in the roles. Phantom wasn't helped by its non-stars. Perhaps the only way to make it a sure thing would be the presence of teen-accessible folk who grace the cover of PEOPLE. The title "RENT" also lacks must-see-ability. It's low concept in an era when people want to know exactly what they're getting.

EVITA benefitted from Madonna, and the VH-1 release of key musical sequences. It went on to about 80 million domestically, I believe. But MADONNA = EVITA feels promotable. I think all those faces in soething called Rent is too hard to nail down.

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I think that it is doing respectably. It is not as if it will come to under $10 million, that would be considered a big flop. And I really wouldn't be optimistic about International business. RENT is almost unknown to the rest of the world, unfortunately ! Plus, it is considered a VERY American musical from what I've read, so the rest of the world will not be interested enough to go and discover what a universal message it carries !

It is sad, guys, but we have to face it. The movie-going public doesn't care about musicals any more ! Evita and Phantom are hugely famous musicals and their movie versions did only around $50 million each. Chicago was an exception !

But really, what do you all care about box-office records ? I know we all wished it well, but if you loved the film and took it to your heart, what does it matter how many tickets it sold ? I am happy that RENT is now recorded forever and it will soon be ours to have in our home. Screw the others and let thenm go and enjoy the blockbusters ! RENT is a very important piece of my heart, I am very happy that the movie got made, that it wasn't torn apart by the critics, that it wasn't ridiculed at the box office ! Even if ten people saw the movie, understood its message and became fans, I am happy !

Updated On: 12/4/05 at 07:00 PM

Just to keep the entire musical box office thing in perspective:

I think what you have to keep in mind is that both CHICAGO and EVITA had name stars in leads, but both also received generally favorable reviews -- certainly more favorable then RENT, which is probably one of the most panned major releases by a studio in 2005. When films receive reviews like this its almost impossible for them to do well at the box office - even when they have huge stars like oh, say, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck involved...

But RENT's box office aside -- what ultimately is more important is how the film does in DVD sales. PHANTOM underperformed in cineplexes (you can quote the bad reviews/no star theory here at will) but ended up being a huge seller in the home video market. Huge.

If RENT can do similar dvd business, along with the PRODUCERS -- plenty of studios will be intrigued by the idea of producing a musical, because they all know already the real money is made after the film leaves theatres -- not during.

Updated On: 12/4/05 at 07:05 PM

And we should all look to the one bright side of this...the DVD will probably come out earlier!

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You are very correct as (almost) always, Michael
It has already been mentioned, that nowadays the DVD sales account for most of a film's profits and even big movie flops recoup their investment !
As for The Producers, I think it has the potential to be way more succesful than RENT. It has all the ingredients that the movie-goers are looking for in a good old-fashioned glamorous musical !

Updated On: 12/4/05 at 07:10 PM

for a movie that had a massive campaign behind it on television with endless commercials and profiled on (almost) every major talk show, news show and magazine the numbers should have been alot better.

it's obvious that people really don't care for it. it is (as hard as it is for me to write) one if not *the* worst reviewed film of the year.

word of mouth overall from the general public (not counting over-enthusiastic rent fans) has been poor and the numbers are there to prove it ~ people are not flocking to see this.

my friend derek who never saw the show (and he works 2 blocks from the nederlander) saw the film and liked only one thing about the film: the music. he fell in love with the songs and ran out to buy the soundtrack. he didn't care for the movie though.

MB--Really? I know it's been a while since HAIR, but I recall the reviews being about the same as Rent... Everything from praise to pans, but mostly in the "C-" range. (It's a vague recollection, at best, admittedly.)

I looked it up on IMDb and Hair received no Oscar nominations, and only 2 Golden Globe noms... Best Comedy or Musical Picture and Best New Star (Treat Williams). It won none.

It's regarded much better these days, however. And I'm glad about that. I always thought it was a fine cinematic interpretation of what basically was a "revue" of songs with 1 1/2 pages of plot on stage. The film mainly suffered from bad timing for its release.

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