Interesting piece by my co-blogger on us vs. them.

Not that long ago I did a post discussing how perspective matters on how events are interpreted. Mick's comments on Brokeback Mountain's alleged failure commercially are a case in point.

Setting aside its "artistic merits", Brokeback is aptly named--the movie only cost 14 million to make but will still lose money.

He's probably relying on the same news sources as Faux News, which was reporting on the film's failure on the same day the first sales numbers were released, showing record same screen ticket sales for Brokeback Mountain. Interestingly, even Fox has had to concede the math when looking at the Christmas weekend numbers.

Who's afraid of a couple of gay cowboys? Not moviegoers, who helped "Brokeback Mountain" post the highest per-screen average over the film-flush holiday weekend.

The Ang Lee film, which follows the 20-year forbidden romance between two roughneck ranch hands, earned $13,599 per theater, compared with $9,305 for weekend winner "King Kong" and $8,225 for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

Note well, Kong premiered on 3568 screens and took in $50.15 million. That same week Brokeback, which was showing in only 69 theaters (no smirking from the peanut gallery) took in $2.4 million. In its first week of release, showing in only six theaters, it took in a staggering $109,000 per screen.

Back to Mick:

Even among its cherry-picked audiences, the movie is garnering a surprising negative reaction. a standard survey of Box Office Mojo members resulted in 22% giving the film and 'F'.

And this is meaningful why? Box Office Mojo is a just a website - a movie industry and box office reporting service. Individuals can rate movies and thousands have. Their own review for Brokeback is very positive, and on sites like this it goes without saying that movies like Star Wars and Batman are going to get the best user ratings. You'd expect nothing less given their large box office hits. One has to wonder how many of the "F" grades were given by people who haven't even seen the film.

As far as the cherry picked audience, there's a half truth to that. They wanted the film available for the 2005 awards season, but they wanted to control the release so word of mouth could provide some additional momentum.

Apparently, it's worked well enough that, according to BOM, they've actually stepped up their release into the heartland.

The expansion will be more aggressive than previously planned, with around 275 theaters set for Jan. 6 and about 400 for Jan. 13. The original intent was to be in 300 venues by the end of January. Among Brokeback Mountain's encouraging numbers, Foley noted two theaters in conservative markets that Focus used as an experiment for the picture's crossover appeal: the AMC Yorktown 18 near Chicago and the Cinemark Legacy 24 in Plano, Texas—"one of the biggest grossing theaters in the nation for The Passion of the Christ," explained Foley. Brokeback Mountain ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the complexes, respectively. "[The movie] is playing to the smart set as well as the boomer set, the senior set and the gay community," Foley said.

In midwestern suburbia, the midweek matinee I attended had a nearly full theater made up of typical midwesterners - a mix of young and old, male and female, and not really any stereotypically gay. Apparently the advance ticket sales are setting records even in Salt Lake City, near Mick's home. Perhaps he should burden himself with viewing the film before deciding he hates it. I do warn him, though, it's more of a chick flick than he (or I for that matter) would typically see.

In any event, the $14 million movie that my friend just knows will lose money has already grossed $13.9 million. And that's just limited release in North America. Nevermind international, DVD sales, etc. His instincts are usually better than this where money is concerned..

But it certainly shows, yet again, how the perspective one brings affects your interpretation.