50 Kisses HUGE Box Office Success... The numbers are in!

Charles Gant of the Guardian and first stop for all industry players looking for last weekends box office analysis just wrote in his piece on the UK box office figures… 

 

‘Showing in a one-off screening the day before Valentine's Day, 50 Kisses achieved a robust £9,435 at east London's Genesis cinema. Billed as the world's first crowd-sourced feature film, it emerged from a challenge presented at the 2012 London Screenwriters' festival. The guideline for submissions was that they should be set on Valentine's Day and feature at least one kiss’. FULL ARTICLE HERE

And so the 50 Kisses experiment enjoys a HUGE success! This is a BIG DEAL!

 

We set out to achieve a HUGE screen average (the screen average is how much a film takes per screen) and we did that by getting everyone into one venue for one screening. We called it a premiere, yes we had a red carpet too… BUT it was a theatrical release screening and any member of the public could have bought a ticket. And some did!

 

Amazingly we did more than half the business in ONE screening than ‘The Book Thief’ did in one screen for a whole week, and in it’s OPENING WEEKEND AT THAT!

 

So, all these films opened this week…

 

Her, £449,307 from 200 sites
Gunday, £206,741 from 59 sites
Jack Strong, £62,973 from 21 sites
Barbie in the Pearl Princess, £61,392 from 83 sites
Sleepless in Seattle, £19,462 from 75 sites (rerelease)

The Book Thief, £16,795 from 1 site
Idhu Kathirvelan Kadhal, £12,460 from 8 sites
Bastards, £11,574 from 10 sites

50 Kisses, £9,453 from 1 site
Love Is in the Air, £7,816 from 3 sites

1983, £7,715 from 21 sites
8 Minutes Idle, £2,412 from 4 sites

 

Perhaps the most telling and relevant numbers are for the films that we beat.

 

And remember, the films that we beat played in multiple sites too (between 3 and 21 screens).

 

Almost certainly, the theatrical runs for ‘Bastards’,‘Love Is In The Air’, ‘1983’ and ‘8 minutes Idle’ are over. They just failed to perform.

 

Looking at screen averages, ‘8 minutes idle’ did £603 and ‘1983’ did £367. 50 where ‘50 Kisses’ had a screen average of £9,453.

 

While it’s easy to get over analytical, ‘50 Kisses’ has proven that a tactical theatrical release can actually cover its costs.

 

How do the numbers break down?

 

So a back of the napkin calculation reads…

 

We took £9,453 form which the government takes 20% VAT (£1575.50) leaving £7877.50.

 

This was split between the distributor (Guerilla Films) and the Genesis Cinema 50/50, leaving £3,938.75 for us (a special deal as it’s usually 75/25 in the favour of the cinema – again thank you Genesis Cinema!).

 

Distributor David Wilkinson worked for free for this film as he believed in it so much (please note, he won’t do this for your film!)

 

So we had £3,938.75 to cover our HARD costs which included…

 

Posters, design and print £1200

BBFC Classification £800 (estimate)

DCP drive £300

Venue Staff £450

Awards Trophies £900

 

Of course there is a huge mountain of softer costs and time spent by our paid staff, but we just kind of assimilated this along the way. And I simply wanted to illustrate that you CAN get a release for a film AND not lose money on it. Or not lose too much!

We are now looking at screenings in other venues in the country.

 

So a big congratulations to EVERYONE who attended, all filmmakers, all writers and a HUGE thank you to the Genesis Cinema, and of course David Wilkinson, the unsung hero of British Indie Cinema. What a fine beard he has too!

 

Chris Jones

www.50KissesFilm.com

 

PS - Our IMDb rating is still holding steady at 8.1 - can you vote?

www.imdb.com/title/tt2249786

Write a comment

Comments: 10
  • #1

    Simon Foster (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 16:18)

    So by my calculation that makes 50 Kisses No 2 at the UK Box Office based on screen average!

  • #2

    50kisses (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 16:23)

    Yes! Ridiculous, of course, but correct!

  • #3

    Ross Aitken (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 16:40)

    8 Minutes Idle was an iFeatures flick - http://www.ifeatures.co.uk/eight-minutes-idle.html
    whose distributor looks like they went under at the last minute and they funded their theatrical run via Kickstarter.
    Christ, it's not easy, is it??
    Congrats 50 Kisses team - iTunes next?

  • #4

    Anil Rao (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 16:40)

    Nothing short of an achievement here and best called at that ‘awesome and amazing’, however more importantly, this is just evidential enough to showcase that possibility in the face of adversity is about seeing what you can do, rather than accepting that you cannot.

    Just brilliant.

    :)

    :)

  • #5

    Alexis (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 16:46)

    That's great! Congrats! Are there any plans for a similar screenwriting & film-making competition in the near future?

  • #6

    Stuart (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 16:59)

    Wonderful stats.
    I'm intrigued to know what the audience vote was on the night for 50Kisses, is this info being released?

  • #7

    50kisses (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 17:20)

    Alexis yes, we do plan another. And Stuart, we are waiting for the glass awards to be engraved before announcing the winner of the audience award. I suspect it will be next Friday or the following Monday

  • #8

    Giselle (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 17:55)

    Wow! well done to everyone who contributed to getting bums on seats, I am so proud to have been part of that team that met on a rainy Saturday at the Met film school to help promote The 50 Kisses Premiere. We did it!!!! Chris Jones you are an inspiration.

  • #9

    50kisses (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 18:09)

    Thanks so much Giselle, it really shows what can be done if we all get together and demand the impossible! And thank you for your kind words.
    CJ

  • #10

    Andrew T.W (Wednesday, 19 February 2014 18:50)

    Well if that isn't a testament to people power with an objective, I don't know what is.

    Now I wonder if those ex-UK Film Council incompetents, who are sat in the same jobs, in the same organisation under a different name, will sit up and take note and start investing in the obvious abundance of talent or will it still be "jobs for the boys"?

    Whatever the case, we've proved we don't need them and can do a better job without them. Maybe the 50 Kisses model has shown us that filmmakers should form their own collective and make, release and distribute our own films, share/invest any profits and pull the industry up by its socks and put it where it should be?

    Damn well done.