{"id":13403,"date":"2011-04-04T08:37:17","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T13:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=13403"},"modified":"2018-11-20T23:02:59","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T04:02:59","slug":"re-edited-kings-speech-fails-to-bump-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2011\/04\/04\/re-edited-kings-speech-fails-to-bump-box-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Re-Edited KING’S SPEECH Fails To Bump Box Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Back in January<\/a>, Harvey Weinstein announced his plan to release a re-edited edition of The King’s Speech<\/strong>. His thought was that if the film’s rating was dropped from it’s current R rating to a PG-13 one by eliminating the only string of profanities in the film, that entire families would be able to go to theaters to see the at-the-time Academy Award nominated film. This weekend that edited version of The King’s Speech<\/strong>, made without the participation<\/a> of the film’s director Tom Hooper, premiered in theaters.<\/p>\n

So did the hoped for audiences show up this weekend?<\/p>\n

In a word – no.<\/p>\n

Taking a look at the box office numbers for this weekend<\/a>, the re-edited version of The King’s Speech<\/strong> pulled in $1.19 million dollars in ticket sales on 1,011 screens. This was down 23.3% from last weekend<\/a>‘s $1.55 million. Which isn’t bad considering that last weekend’s box office take was down 23.4% from the previous weekend of March 18-20, where it sold just over $2 million in tickets.<\/p>\n

But factoring in the number of screens the film is on for each weekend reveals a different picture. Two weekends ago, The King’s Speech<\/strong> was on 1,249 screens and had a per screen average of $1,629. However, the following weekend, the film lost 187 screens and had a per screen average drop of approximately 10% to $1467. Between last week and this week’s release of the re-edited film, there was only a 51 screen drop, but with a per screen average of $1,181, that comes to loss of 19.4%.<\/p>\n

The numbers don’t lie. They clear show that Weinstein’s assertion that a more family-friendly rating would bring in more audience just wasn’t going to happen. I dare say that if the R-rated version remained in theaters that the box office numbers wouldn’t have been too much different from what we’re seeing now.<\/p>\n

In Britain, where they don’t have quite the hang up over “naughty” words as it seems we have here in the States, The King’s Speech<\/strong> carries a rating of 12A, similar to our PG-13. The film has been doing well with audiences of all ages, and yes, families have been going to see it together. I think it would be fair to say that a story about the Royal Family would have a wider appeal in Britain and perhaps not too much of an appeal among the age group of Americans that was already prohibited to see it by its rating.<\/p>\n

Harvey Weinstein is a savvy executive and his list of smart business decisions is a fairly long one. It’s just that we won’t be adding the idea of editing The King’s Speech<\/strong> down from an R to a PG-13 to that list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harvey Weinstein’s hope that editing THE KING’S SPEECH down to PG-13 would boast the film’s box office has not panned out.<\/div>\n

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