The tale of an unconventional family racing across the Southwest to make a kiddie beauty pageant, "Little Miss Sunshine" has thus far grossed $13.4 million, earning the highest per-theater average among all of the weekend's Top 10 films. The road movie will more than double its release this weekend, moving into 1,400 locations.
Twenty years ago, the top box-office hits averaged taking in only 12% of their total theatrical returns on their opening weekends. So far this year, first-weekend sales make up nearly a third of total sales, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Although the percentage of total tickets sold in the first weekend is more modest for highbrow releases, there's no doubt sales for those films can accelerate faster than ever.
The wrong kind of word of mouth can be devastating. When Sony released "Monster House" earlier this summer, the animated movie collected some of the season's best reviews and opened to a respectable $22.2 million. But in its second weekend, the film slipped nearly 48%. Sony believes the sharp drop-off was largely attributable to parents' telling other parents that "Monster House" was too intense for small children. Thanks to that don't-dare-take-your-6-year-old advice, the film collapsed more than 40% the next three weekends, and was soon history.
"Instant communications technology has completely changed the role of word of mouth," says Nancy Utley, chief operating officer for "Little Miss Sunshine" distributor Fox Searchlight. "Word of mouth used to be confined to cities. Now, thanks to e-mail, it crosses continents. It's revolutionized what word of mouth means." Fox Searchlight certainly has helped magnify the film's profile with progressively ubiquitous ads and promotions featuring a bright yellow color scheme.
In a recent Los Angeles Times poll on the moviegoing habits of teens and young adults, 38% of those surveyed said they share their opinions about a movie during or right after the film or on the same day. That kind of immediate national consensus spelled a quick finish to a number of recent movies that were released without being shown to film reviewers, including "Zoom" and "Pulse."
But what's bad news for these middlebrow duds may be a boon to movie lovers. Since word of mouth helps good movies while punishing weaker ones, it may result in a new Hollywood emphasis on playability -- a film's intrinsic quality -- instead of marketability, the easy sales hooks that yield so many forgettable sequels and remakes. "It's kind of like a return to the 1970s," says Jeff Blake, the vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, "when word of mouth meant everything."
