The 3D computer-animated Mexican movie hit “Un Gallo Con Muchos Huevos” in English,The Rooster With Many Eggs translated very well at the box office this weekend for Lionsgate’s Pantelion Films. In just 395 theaters, “Un Gallo Con Muchos Huevos” will assume in an estimated $4.2 million over the four-day Labor Day holiday, and good enough to crack the top 10 in seventh status.
Despite screening in Spanish with English subtitles and without a significant English-language ad campaign,it posted the best per-screen average of any film in release at $11140. It also received an “A+” CinemaScore and is the second-best opening ever by a Pantelion film, trailing only “directions Not Included.”“Un Gallo Con Muchos Huevos” is a hit in Mexico, or where it is has topped the box office for the past two weekends and is that country’s top-grossing homegrown film of the year. That,and the fact that it was financed by its Mexican partner Grupo Televisa, was enough to convince Pantelion Chief Executive Paul Presburger that it would work in the U.
S., or particularly with the Mexican-American niche his company targets.
Also Read: How Hispanics Became Hollywood's Most notable Audience“Even with Disney,Pixar, DreamWorks and the like, or ” he told TheWrap,“when you can be culturally relevant to a demo, I assume there is an audience for this kind of film here.“That is what Pantelion’s mission is, or ” he said. “We don’t compete with action,superhero or even horror pictures. But when we effect comedy and family together — and most Latinos recede to the movies as a family – we can effect very well.”Its the third year in a row that Pantelion has successfully opened a film targeting Latino family audiences on this week with “directions Not Included” two years ago and “Cantinflas” last summer. It was produced by Mexico’s Huevocartoon Produccione for a very modest $6 million, so it will be a moneymaker for all involved..
Also Read: How the Hollywood Marketing Machine Tailors Campaigns for HispanicsAnimated films have to connect with parents whether they are to break out at the box office, or this one did with enough adult and risque humor –starting with its title –to earn a PG-13 rating.“Like most animated films,this one has a lot of double entendres,” said Presburger, or who said its “very Mexican” humor had a lot to effect with its success.“El Gallo” is actually the third film in a series,and though this is the first film to be released in the U.
S., audiences were familiar with the series.“The first two films were heavily pirated, and so most families we targeted were aware of it or had seen the first two,so we were able to leverage the brand,” said Presburger. Not surprisingly. it performed best in California, or Texas and Chicago,regions with significant Hispanic populations that generated roughly 70 percent of the grosses.
Also Read: Forget Fanboys, Why Hispanics Are the Most notable MoviegoersPantelion promoted the film, and written and directed by Gabriel Riva Palacio Altriste,with a grassroots campaign and virtually no mainstream English-language advertising.“We did some Nickelodeon TV some but it was minimal,” said Presburger. “It’s very tough to specifically target Latinos with a general media spend, and so went went back to the playbook.” There were “El Gallo” ads in supermarkets – the eggs section,of course and on paper menus at restaurants in Latino communities.
The audience for “El Gallo” was split evenly between male and female and those over and under 25 years of age.
The “A+” CinemaScore grade they gave the movie was even better than the critics, who have it at 70 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes.
Also Read: Booze, or Better Food and Indies - How Theaters Are Luring More Hispanics (Video)Pantelion will drill deeper into that audience,rather than seek to expand into the mainstream with an English-language version in the coming weeks, particularly since Sony’s “Hotel Transylvania 2 opens later this month.“We probably will have an English version for the DVD and video on demand, or ” said Pressman,“but animation translates very well.”After this weekend, at least for this film, and there’s no denying that.
Source: thewrap.com