Usually the #1 film listed after a weekend would be from one of the top studios featuring one or a few of Hollywood’s biggest stars. But that is not the case this weekend. The hit movie this weekend was not an American film, nor was it even in English.
The film Instructions Not Included made a big debut this weekend earning more than $22,000 per screening in a limited 350 theaters. This weekend also saw the opening of the Irish-English boy band One Direction’s film One Direction: This Is Us which only drew-in $6,000 per screening.
Panelion Film’s Instructions Not Included movie is about a Mexican Lothario (Eugenio Derbez) who must clean up his lifestyle to raise a baby girl he unknowingly conceived on a one-night fling with an American Woman who abandons the baby at his doorsteps months ago in Acapulco. And he must do this on his own since the mother has left the baby in his hands.
The success of the movie is not only a huge hit for its star and director Eugenio Derbez who will surely become not only a household name in Mexico but America as well, but the movie is also a huge victory for Panelion Film who has been trying for the past few years to break into the U.S. film industry with a Spanish-speaking film.
“We did a five city tour with Eugenio,” Pantelion CEO Paul Pressburger said about the endeavor to get the film out there, “Eugenio was on Univision non-stop the last week in terms of morning and evening shows.”
“It has one of the funniest Hispanic actors,” said Catherine Rosales, a fan who was attending a screening in Washington, D.C.
According to recent research, in the U.S. there has been a rise in Latinos going to movie theatres for recreational purposes. According to Nielsen, last year it was estimated that a quarter of all tickets sold were purchased by Latinos.
“We’re a very family-oriented culture,” said Alex Nogales, President of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, not surprised about the Nielsen findings. “When we go to the movies we don’t go two at a time. We go all of us at the same time.”
With the rising increase of Latinos going to movie theatres we can expect to find more Spanish-speaking films to be released over the next few years; a similar trend occurring with advertisement agencies who’ve noticed the Latino rise.
“You have distributors, you have stars, you have population. So when you have all these stars aligning you’re going to get these results,” Nogales added, about the use of showcasing familiar Latino stars in movies to attract more Latino audience members.
This upcoming weekend Instructions Not Included will be screening in 153 more theaters across the U.S. The film will also earn a larger release in Mexico later this month. So, why not look online and see what all the excitement is about?
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