After struggling nearly everywhere it played, including its native U.K., Keeping Mum led the way on the per theatres charts with an average of $13,556 in two theatres. This could be enough for it to earn some measure of mainstream success, but that's far from guaranteed. The U.S. vs John Lennon opened with nearly $70,000 in 6 theatres for an average of $11,524, which was just ahead of the only holdover to top $10,000, Man Push Cart with $11,002 in its lone theatre.

The best of the rest was Al Franken - God Spoke with an average of $5,267. However, that was lower that it would have been had the film not opened on a Wednesday. The only other film to perform adequately was We Go Way Back at $4,514 in its lone theatre. The rest of the films struggled, mostly as a result of opening in too many theatres. This is certainly the case for Artie Lange's Beer League as it earned just $300,000 in 164 for an average of just $1,847. Next up was Confetti with $1,713 while Haven and The Ground Truth were neck and neck with $1,598 and $1,526. A bit farther behind was Jesus Camp with $1,358 and Aurora Borealis brought up the rear at just $1,080.

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

• Bad Cop, Bon Cop made it all the way to $10 million; it actually did it last weekend and we missed it. This is equivalent to about $100 million given the relative size of the Canadian marketplace compared to the domestic box office as a whole.
• The Illusionist is continuing to grow its theatre count and that helped it reach $20 million very early over the weekend. However, the film has peaked at the box office and will start shedding theatres shortly, but the studio should be very happy with the film's success already and everything from now on is just gravy.

- C.S.Strowbridge

Date posted: 2006-09-19