Tuesday 2 March 2010

AUDIENCE: The Crazies: $12m hit

A real-life eg of importance of defining target aud: The Crazies

MATERIAL SUCH AS THE BELOW IS THE SORT OF THING YOU SHOULD BE REFERENCING WITHIN YOUR AUDIENCE POST/S: CAN YOU SHOW THAT YOUR GENRE IS CURRENTLY POPULAR AND HAS A SUCCESSFUL HISTORY? WHAT RECENT HIT FILMS HAVE THERE BEEN FROM THIS GENRE [PROVIDE FINAL BOX OFFICE FIGURES + BUDGET]...

Yet another reminder of why its so useful to keep dipping into the Film Guardian comes this snippet - which highlights the central importance of having a well-defined target audience:
The Crazies proved once again that concepts, not marquee names, are king at today's multiplex. Despite lacking a big star, it was the only new release this weekend to open at £1m-plus, and the only one to achieve a screen average above £3,000. This remake of a little-seen 1973 George Romero zombie-horror benefited from a clearly defined audience and a lack of competition in the genre market, opening not far behind the debut figure of the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (£1.36m) and almost dead level with the first weekend of 2006's The Hills Have Eyes (£1.13m). With a production budget estimated by IMDBPro at $12m, the title is likely to be solidly profitable for its investors and international distributors.
Source: Gant, Charles (2010) "The Crazies lurch to UK box office success", The Guardian [online], 2.3.10. Accessed online 2.3.10 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/mar/02/the-crazies-uk-box-office

To see how the campaign for this film developed, and watch the trailer, see http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2009/12/21/the-final-poster-for-the-crazies-is-released/

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