Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Josh Hutcherson, Mia Wasikowska, Mark Ruffalo in Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right (top); Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (bottom)
Starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as lovers, and Mark Ruffalo as the biological father of the lesbian couple's children (Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson), The Kids Are All Right has received numerous positive reviews and has performed admirably at the domestic box office.
This weekend, the Focus Features release took in an estimated $3.46, bringing its cume after four weekends to $9.56m according to Box Office Mojo. That's not bad at all for a $4m production.
But now that it has expanded from 201 to 841 theaters, The Kids Are All Right's average has gone down to $4,089 — no. 6 among the weekend's top twelve movies. Whereas in limited release in the last two weeks, the Lisa Cholodenko-directed family comedy-drama almost invariably had the highest daily average among the top twelve.
The film's current per-theater average may still leave room for further increases in the number of venues, but probably not that many more and not for very long.
In fact, it's highly unlikely that The Kids Are All Right will get even close to matching the success of Focus' 2005 Brokeback Mountain — the distributor's top box-office hit to date — which took in $83.4m (not adjusted for inflation) in the US/Canada.
For comparison's sake: When Brokeback Mountain expanded to 683 theaters on weekend no. 6 (early Jan. 2006), its per-theater average remained a highly impressive $8,499. By then, the Ang Lee-directed drama starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal had already grossed $30.8m.
Brokeback Mountain benefited from year-end critics' awards and multiple Golden Globe nominations, to be sure. Those should also help The Kids Are All Right, which will inevitable be shortlisted throughout awards season (Annette Bening is a shoo-in for Best Actress citations), if the Cholodenko's film gets rereleased later in the year or in early 2011.
Photo: The Kids Are All Right (Suzanne Tenner / Focus Features); Brokeback Mountain (Kimberley French / Focus Features).