After The Avengers annihilated box-office records by opening to $207 million at 4,349 theaters this past weekend, it's easy to overlook the feats achieved by a more genteel form of cinema.
But not only did The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a picturesque tea-time tonic about British retirees who head off to India, collect an impressive $737,000 at just 27 theaters in 12 cities while going up against a phalanx of buff superheroes. It is also the rare smaller film to draw a sizable crowd by daring to open the same day as the first blockbuster salvo of the summer season.
While looking for a date that would allow Marigold Hotel's busy star Judi Dench to do press, Fox Searchlight decided that May 4 was perfect since no other significant release was willing to take on Iron Man and The Hulk.
As mass-appeal entertainment, "The Avengers plays to everyone," says Searchlight president Steve Gilula. To fight back, at least initially, Marigold Hotel focused their marketing on a very specific and underserved demographic that showed up in spades: Overwhelmingly 35-plus and about two-thirds female.
"We weren't afraid of The Avengers," Gilula says. One reason: "There hasn't been a film that catered to sophisticated tastes since the Oscars." Nor are they scared of Friday's arrival of Dark Shadows with its vamped-up Johnny Depp, as Marigold Hotel expands this weekend into 61 cities and 177 theaters supported by revised TV spots that tie in with Mother's Day. "The exciting thing is, its core audience is potentially much larger," says Gilula, especially as word of mouth builds.
Sometimes, making moviegoers feel like they are discovering a gem rather than buying into the hype can be a valuable selling tool. "We saw that urge to communicate this experience with someone was very high since the very early screenings," says John Madden, Marigold Hotel's director. "You could see the anecdotal evidence on Twitter."
Since 2001, only two other art-house features have managed to make a considerable dent in the box office on the first day of Hollywood's most competitive period: 2005's Crash, the racially charged drama that pulled in $9 million in nearly 1,900 theaters against the epic Kingdom of Heaven and won the best-picture Oscar; and Babies, the coochy-coo documentary that was delivered on Mother's Day weekend and collected more than $2 million at 534 theaters while fending off Iron Man 2.
Expect more smaller films to follow suit, now that Marigold Hotel— whose gross already climbed to nearly $1 million at mid-week — has shown that such reservations aren't necessary.
