Whither Little Children?

Is Little Children set for an unfortunate opening weekend? Why on Earth did New Line premier this movie on a five cinemas? On Friday it grossed $27,000. That equals an average of just over $5000. That means the movie is gonna need a BIG upshtick on Saturday to even come close to the two Oscar players that debuted last week in limited release. The problem at this time of the year with limited releases is that you run the risk of having your audience decide to see something else because there are so many films gunning for the quality arthouse title.

Last week The Queen averaged over $40,000 from 3 screens (and it was for only two days as it debuted on Saturday, not Friday. So it would have topped $50,000 if it had that extra day). The Last King of Scotland made just over $35,000 from it's 4 screens over three days. On it's opening Friday, Scotland had an average of over $10,000 already.

Also debuting in limited release was John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus debuted with less, but avergaged more because it debuted on four screens (but that was a film that was going to struggle to make anything outside of New York and Los Angeles).

Where does this leave Little Children? Well, we'll see how much it finishes the weekend with, but it will most likely be under $100,000 and will also most likely not have an average of over $20,000. Those are not numbers you want to be seeing for an Oscar-chasing drama starring Kate Winslet and by the man who made Best Picture nominee In the Bedroom. Brokeback Mountain debuted with an average of over $100,000. Even Memoirs of a Geisha averaged $85,000 and that one had questionable reviews, unlike Little Children.

Now, In the Bedroom had very similar numbers and that, as we know, went on to a Best Picture nomination and a few others. But, I get the feeling that Little Children needs more than that. Especially this year with so many movies going after the "arthouse" spot on Oscar's roster. It's got a toutable attractive cast with a director coming off of an Oscar heavy film. I get the feeling they should've gone down the same route as last year's The Constant Gardener (also the sophomore effort from a director of an Oscar heavy film with an attractive cast) and A History of Violence, which both opened semi-wide to grosses of $8.5mil and $8.1mil respectively. But they got talked about because they were in the Top 10. They got press, which, a film like Little Children needs. What it doesn't need is to be languishing in the lower rungs of the box office chart.

Hopefully the word will get out and New Line will actually start to advertise it and it can follow the same path as In the Bedroom. But right now, I'm scared for it. I'm not sure I can handle having a movie like Little Children failing to make, in it's entire run, the sort of number that Employee of the Month (starring Nikelodean Awards winner Jessica Simpson, lol) makes it it's opening weekend.