TARA BRADYon the idiosyncrasies of the Irish box office
IT'S ALL about the ratios. For more than a decade pundits and wags have been fascinated by The Blair Witch Project's failure to ignite a digital revolution.
In 1999, Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick's breakthrough hit earned $248,639,099 back from a production budget of $60,000, making it one of the most profitable films of all time. But, as anyone involved might attest, Blair Witchdid not mark a new wondrous democratic age in movie-making.
Since its release, director Daniel Myrick has made a few films, but only one ( The Objective) made it into cinemas before limping home with a total $95 gross. Yep – $95. A sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2,bore the scars of panicked studio interference and was horrific for all the wrong reasons.
The unexpected re-emergence of the Found Footage Flick is an unexpected bonus from an era old-timers call post-Web 2.0. In a world of smartphones and Skype, our eyes have become accustomed to smaller, degraded images, a fact not lost on film- makers, who have utilised found footage everywhere from Cloverfieldto The Last Exorcism.
It's not a foolproof system. In recent months, Apollo 18failed to pack them in and Troll Hunterwas hindered by a limited release. But when it works, it really works. Thus Paranormal Activityheads up the chart of the 10 most profitable films of all time (the rest in order: Tarnation, Mad Max, Super Size Me, The Blair Witch Project, Night of the Living Dead, Rocky, Halloween, American Graffitiand Once) with a whopping 645,801.51 per cent return on its initial budget. Take that Avatar, with your paltry 933 per cent.
Last year, even with seasonal competition from the final Sawinstalment, a second Paranormalfilm mustered $177,512,032 worldwide. That may well look like chump change when they get around to doing the books on Paranormal Activity 3. The prequel to the prequel broke US box-office records last weekend with a $52.6 million opening.
Comparatively speaking, the same film looked a little depressed on this side of the Atlantic with a €4.3 million take from the UK and Ireland. Still, the ROI greatly preferred PA3 to any of its near rivals. The film took €339,395 from 51 locations here ( Contagion's €209,166 from 58 sites placed it second in the chart), thereby averaging out with more than six grand per screen.
Only two other titles came close to achieving that much bang for their buck. We Need to Talk About Kevinmanaged more than four grand per print last weekend, as did this month's biggest ratio success story, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.
So there is room for the little guy out there. Next weekend won't you spare a thought for Miranda July's The Futureand Irish indie Sensationas they head out to battle In Time, Tower Heistand Machine Gun Preacherin one of the most hectic movie slates of the year.
