It's safe to say that Award Season is unofficially underway, as there were four films in the $10,000 club with another just behind. Leading the way was the prestige opening of The Corpse Bride, which pulled in almost $400,000 in just 5 theatres for an average of $77,016. Next up was the Oscar hopeful Proof, which made close to $200,000 in 8 theatres for a $24,230 per theatre average. And lastly we have two films with nearly identical per theatre averages, Separate Lies and Everything is Illuminated with averages of $11,171 and $11,134 respectively.

This past week also saw milestones reached for a couple of Per Theatre Charts alumni:

• An Unfinished Life expanded into more than 750 theatres over the weekend and now sits at just north of $3 million, hitting two milestones along the way. However, the film's per theatre average is weak enough that it doesn't warrant another significant growth in its theatre count.
• The Per Theatre Average column wouldn't be the same without March of the Penguins crossing another milestone. The film has now reached $70 million, placing it ahead of Sahara, which cost $122 million more to make. Also of note, while the film lost more than 500 theatres this weekend, its per theatre average actually rose significantly and almost entirely compensated for the loss.

Submitted by: C.S.Strowbridge

Date posted: 2005-09-20