Sunday, July 17, 2011

"The Undefeated" Beats Expectations On Opening Weekend

The film generated a very impressive $5000 per screen through Saturday night. This most likely places it at #2 in average gross revenue per theater - trailing only Harry Potter. A wider national rollout is now being planned.
ARC Entertainment, the distributor of “The Undefeated,” the film about Gov. Sarah Palin’s rise from obscurity to national prominence, announced today that through Saturday night the film had a stronger opening than expected with the large markets trending towards weekend per screen averages above $10,000 driven by multiple sold-out runs. The film had accumulated approximately $5,000 per screen through Saturday night. Unique in the theatrical feature world, The Undefeated was rushed to select digital theatres in only 3 weeks, and was marketed almost entirely through social media and grass roots efforts, with virtually no traditional media spend. With the strong initial showing, the film is going to a wider release footprint later this month, with details being announced soon.

The film opened in 10 markets on Friday including Atlanta, GA, Dallas, TX, Houston, TX, Denver, CO, Phoenix, AZ, Orlando, FL, Indianapolis, IN, Kansas City, MO, Oklahoma City, OK and Orange, CA.

“We are extremely pleased with the audience reaction, which has been over-the-top enthusiastic and very passionate, including standing ovations at most screenings,” said Trevor Drinkwater, CEO of ARC Entertainment, the film’s distributor. “We expect word-of-mouth to keep ticket sales strong and we will definitely expand the film to a wider national audience. With merely three weeks of preparation and a virtually non-existent traditional advertising spend, the film did exceptionally well. ” .

“We have been told the theaters in Phoenix, Atlanta, Denver and Indianapolis moved the film to bigger screens to accommodate oversized crowds. Because of high-ticket sales, the Phoenix theater put ‘The Undefeated’ on two screens during one showing to accommodate demand,” stated Andy Badolato, VP Marketing and Business Development of Victory Film Group and Associate Producer of “The Undefeated.”

Over the weekend reports also documented the strong ticket sales and enthusiastic audience reaction. Reuters reported, “It may not be ‘Harry Potter,’ but another film featuring a bespectacled protagonist is racking up strong pre-sales before its national roll-out this weekend.” AOL’s Patch reported, “Reactions from filmgoers attending the screening were overwhelmingly positive.” The Brisbane Times of Australia reported, “‘The Undefeated,’ a documentary tracing Sarah Palin’s rise to political power, has opened in US theatres to overwhelmingly positive opinion.”

(...)

“The Undefeated is the perfect example of how digital cinema can benefit both producers and audiences,” said Jill Newhouse Calcaterra, chief marketing officer at Cinedigm. “Starting with theatre location selection, we worked quickly – with precision accuracy- to generate a terrific box office result with virtually no marketing dollars. This is a new model that is going to benefit the entire entertainment industry and audiences who want to see unique products.”

“The combination of passionate audience response, sustained standing ovations and in-theater Twittering convinces us that this is a special film that will have incredible word-of-mouth,” said Glenn Bracken Evans, Victory Film Group co-founder. “The film’s website www.theundefeatedmovie.com has received hundreds of thousands of hits. I am truly amazed that in certain markets we will hit or exceed the $10,000 per screen mark given that we had absolutely no electronic media spend and only booked the theaters weeks ago. I’m particularly amazed we accomplished this in Phoenix and Orange County, two of the country’s most competitive markets during one of the toughest summer weekends and up against Harry Potter.”
Read the entire article HERE

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22 comments:

Pablo said...

I can't watch the film until they fix the error in the title.

Nelson said...

Are they basing the success on the number of tickets sold, or the actual number of guests seated? Many showings had less than 25 guests. We do know that there was a huge campaign for all bots to purchase hundreds of tickets, even if they were in cities far, far way and could not go to the movie. Is this another Dancing With The Stars method of getting the numbers up?

Anonymous said...

Nelson, possible. But given a choice between seeing Undefeated or a root canal, I think the dentist is the better choice!

Nelson said...

Anon...I'm with you, I'll choose the dentist too. I'd even rather watch wet paint dry for two hours while standing on my head.

Anonymous said...

so can we officially label palin a moviestar? A movie celebrity together with the likes of jennifer aniston, angelina jolie,natalie portman etc? Its quite an accomplishment, but is the movie suppose to make palin out to be some sort of GOP saviour that we all are suppose to bow down to as soon as she declares a run? And will she run?

Anonymous said...

Who came up with the title of "undefeated"?? In what way is she undefeated? Im not trying to be sarcastic or mocking but exactly how does the word undefeated describe sarah palin??

Is undefeated quitting on the people of arkansas during a term as governor?
Is undefeated losing a presidential election running as a vice president??
Is undefeated lacking the supervision and parental attention needed to prevent a teenage daughter from pregnancy?

In what way is she undefeated? Not one politician can ever label themselves as undefeated.

Anonymous said...

*alaska*

Anonymous said...

The Defeated’s average gross of $6570 PER THEATER which the bots at C4P are saying is ahead of every movie on this list with the exception of Harry Potter this weekend is not true. The other films are not listing PER THEATER the numbers are PER SCREENING.

They not only can NOT do math they cannot read!


dd

Anonymous said...

"The Undefeated Apparently Had A Better Gross Revenue Per Theater Average Than Nearly Every Other Movie Sans Harry Potter," said Conservatives4Palin. They provided a list supporting this conclusion. It began: "The Undefeated: $2870. Transformers: $1608."

Which is true: According to Conservatives4Palin's source, for Friday alone, Transformers: Dark of the Moon did indeed take in about $1608 per screen.

But the Transformers film, in its third weekend, accomplished this on 3,917 screens. The Undefeated opened on ten screens. No, that's not a typo: ten (10) screens. The Palin doc's Friday gross was thus $28,700, while that of Transformers was about $6.3 million.

Nelson said...

The Undefeated currently holds a 0% rating on the review aggregator site Rottentomatoes, which means all of the 10 journalists who have given their verdict reviewed it negatively. Most described the film as a hagiography or an advert. The Village Voice's Anna Merlan called it "a glowing two-hour infomercial for Sarah Palin, Presidential Candidate To-Be" while the LA Times's Robert Abele described "a troop-rallying campaign infomercial as imagined by Michael Bay: hero-worshipping, crescendo-edited at a dizzying pace, thunderously repetitive and its own worst enemy as a two-hour, talking-points briefing".

Meanwhile, another documentary with a rather different take on Palin has been shot by Nick Broomfield, the acclaimed British documentarian. Currently seeking distribution, it reportedly features disparaging interviews with Palin's parents, friends and former Alaska colleagues.

That's the movie I'll spend my money to see.

hamaca said...

Always beware of people's opinions who are already significantly predisposed in a certain direction.

I see nothing wrong with the title. Why the assumption that it's trying to claim she hasn't had any setbacks?

Why can't it mean that, despite significant challenges in her life, she has not let any of them defeat her spirit, her pride, and her resolve to do what she thinks is best for family and country?

Nelson said...

You wonder why we feel the name of the movie should be The Defeated? I'll tell you.

How could a serious person, even a serious conservative, use that title for a movie about Sarah?

She was defeated, most famously, in her run for vice president in 2008.

Prior to that, she was defeated in her run for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002.

Those are two defeats in tries for elective office.

But Sarah’s history of defeat is much more extensive.

She was defeated in the Miss Alaska pageant.

She was defeated in four different attempts to graduate from college before she finally managed it at University of Idaho.

She was defeated in her attempt to get a creationist majority elected to the Wasilla School Board in the early 1990′s.

She was defeated in her attempt to have abortion banned at the Mat-Su Valley hospital.

Before her election as Wasilla mayor, she was defeated when she applied for a position as dispatcher with the Palmer, Alaska, police department and was not hired.

After her election as Wasilla mayor, she was defeated in her attempt to appoint Alaska Independence Party and John Birch Society member Steve Stoll to the city council.

As mayor, she was defeated in her attempt to fire Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Emmons in 1997, a move that nearly led to her recall.

As mayor, she was also defeated in the courts when she tried to build a new sports arena on land the city did not own—a defeat for which Wasilla is still paying.

She was defeated in her first attempt to hold down an appointed job, when she had to bail from her post on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2004, due to her inability to grasp the complexities of the commission’s work.

Mike Miller, the ultra-right wing candidate she supported against Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the 2004 GOP primary for U.S. Senate, was defeated.

As governor of Alaska, she was defeated in her attempt to have her ex-brother in law Mike Wooten fired from the state police.

Also as governor, she was defeated in her attempt to require teenagers to obtain parental consent for abortions.

Also as governor she was defeated in her attempt to have the state pay the expenses involved in her bringing her children with her on political trips, and her image suffered an even greater defeat when it was disclosed that she’d been billing state taxpayers a per diem charge for the more than three hundred days she spent at her Wasilla home while serving as governor.

Her reputation as an ethical reformer suffered another defeat when a state-appointed investigator found that she’d abused the power of her office in her attempt to have Wooten fired.

In 2009, she was defeated in her attempt to install her former personal attorney, Wayne Anthony Ross, as Alaska attorney general.

Subsequent to her resignation, it’s become clear that her strongest initiative as governor–the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA)–has proven a costly failure.

Anonymous said...

Nelson, your abortion defeats are a dead giveaway that you don't belong on a right-leaning site.

Move along.

-Martha

Nelson said...

@ Martha, I didn't say I agreed with the Mat-su abortion issue. I am just report facts. I will not cherry pick facts when it comes to Sarah.

Anonymous said...

Nelson, are you pro-life? A Democrat? What?

-Martha

Nelson said...

Martha, I am 100% prolife with 11 bothers and sisters, five kids of my own and seven grand-kids. I consider myself a right leaning independent. I have only voted for a democrat once in my entire life, and that was for gov. I strongly supported both Bush's. I did not vote for McCain because of Palin. I chose to not vote in 2008. I will be voting in 2012, for Mr. Romney. If Mr Romney is not the GOP candidate I will vote for any other GOP candidate who runs, however, I will not vote for Palin. I'll sit 2012 out again if Palin runs.

Anonymous said...

Bosman, another Palin detractor that sounds like a democrat, who claims to be a Romney supporter...how convenient of Mr. Nelson...he even attempts to invoke that he could possibly practice the Mormon faith...this site has become so silly. I understand the idea of not banning people BUT you should not allow Democrats to ruin your site. At least ROS was a Republican site...I'm not even sure what this site is. I can guarantee if you went on Malia Litman's site and tried to prop up Romney, she would ban you Mr. Bossman!!!

jerseyrepublican

Nelson said...

Jersey, you're quite paranoid. I don't have to prove a damn thing to you. You fear freedom of speech because you don't want to hear how the majority of Americans feel about Palin. You would love nothing more if Bosman ran his blog the way C4P does, where no one is allowed unless they praise the queen 24/7.

Bravo to Bosman!

Romney's the man!

Anonymous said...

Nelson,

You have nothing to fear from the Palin supporters because we are considered the lowest form of life on this site. If Bosman ever did decide to ban anyone (and I don't think he ever will)...it would probably be the Palin supporters. As long as you "Romney" supporters limit your venom to Palin.....you are good as gold.

A.J.R.

hamaca said...

Nelson,

"She was defeated in the Miss Alaska pageant."

That has to be the most comical line of the week! Sarah takes second place at a beauty pageant and you call that a failure? Anyone who gets in is a winner in a sense. So certain women who look like they could be linebacker on a local football team and have never entered a beauty pageant are a success in your book because they didn't take second place?

As far as the rest of your list--wow, I didn't realize Sarah has had to overcome so much adversity. Kudos to her for still standing strong. She has a solid group of supporters. She makes more money than you and I combined.

I'm not in her camp, but I certainly don't think people like you are doing Romney's camp any favors by bashing another prospective candidate as intensely as you do. Now THAT'S suspect.

Nelson said...

So, how did the Palin movie really do? http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/so-howd-that-palin-movie-end-up-doing/242124/

Anonymous said...

the Sarah Palin doc "Undefeated'' did $65,132. Considering it was playing only at 10 cherry-picked locations with lots of her supporters, that's a mediocre start at best -- no matter what her fans at Big Hollywood are claiming. The per-screen average -- about the same as the doc "Tabloid'' -- is only going to go down when the flick moves into wider release where the population is not 67% conservative.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/movies/box_office_potter_numbers_go_up_dyh2QZ2MOwAx3jmdJIgv3J#ixzz1SV2lbAVn


hahahahahahahaha