NYTimes.com Article: Two Americas of 'Fahrenheit' and 'Passion'By SHARON WAXMANJuly 13, 2004 |
Nielsen EDI Inc., which tracks ticket sales, compiled data
showing the 50 theaters around the country where each film
earned the most money. Both movies have been wildly
successful: "Passion" is the year's top-grossing film, with
$609 million in worldwide ticket sales since its February
release, and "Fahrenheit" is the most popular
feature-length documentary ever, with sales in North
America of $80.1 million (the film is just beginning its
international run) in just three weeks. But the data show a
sharp geographical divide in the films' popularity.
The top theaters for "Fahrenheit" have been in urban,
traditionally Democratic strongholds, including Manhattan,
Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Bay Area, Chicago and
Boston.
The highest grossing theaters for "Passion" were typically
more suburban and far more widely dispersed, from Texas and
New Mexico to Ohio, Florida and Orange County, Calif.
For "The Passion," the rankings reflect the film's full
run. For "Fahrenheit," the data include only the first two
weeks of ticket receipts. Nielsen experts said that there
was little difference in the theater rankings for "Passion"
between the first two weeks of release and the full run.
For both films, the top theater was Empire 25 in Times
Square, and theaters in Greenwich Village and West Nyack,
N.Y., were in the top 50. But even in the New York
metropolitan area, the ticket buyers' profiles make for
sharp contrasts.
The area's other top theaters for "Passion" were in
Elizabeth, N.J., and in Whitestone and Astoria, Queens. For
"Fahrenheit" the other top local theaters were on the Upper
West Side and the Upper East Side and in Midtown Manhattan.
After the opening weekend of "Fahrenheit 9/11," Mr. Moore
declared that it was a "red-state movie," referring to
states that voted Republican in the 2000 election. The
numbers on top theaters do little to support the claim, but
"Fahrenheit" did sell out some movie houses in
Republican-leaning states and military towns, including
Fayetteville, N.C., and Oklahoma City.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/13/movies/13BOXO.html?ex=1090977638&ei=1&en=a4438f87ffa173ad
LOS ANGELES, July 12 - The two most surprising hit movies
of 2004 - Michael Moore's Bush-bashing documentary
"Fahrenheit 9/11" and Mel Gibson's religious epic "The
Passion of the Christ" - offer an intriguing opportunity to
examine the polarities among moviegoing Americans.