When Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) won Best Picture at the Oscars on Sunday night, it became one of the lowest-grossing films to win the title in history. Now that it has that win though, Fox Searchlight is hoping that it finally lifts off.
Alejandro G. Inarritu’s film, which centers on an ageing former super hero movie actor (Michael Keaton) hoping to resurrect his career by staging a Broadway play, has been in theaters since October, but has only grossed $37.7 million. The film was never destined to be a mainstream hit like American Sniper, but Fox Searchlight is going to do its best to make sure more people get to see it on the big screen.
TheWrap reported that Fox Searchlight, which is 20th Century Fox’s specialty label, will be putting the dark comedy out in 1,000 theaters this weekend.
It will be an uphill battle to get audiences to see it in a theater, though. After all, the film hit Blu-ray and DVD last week and is also available On Demand. On Monday, the film became the No. 1 movie on iTunes. A Google Play spokesperson told The Los Angeles Times that it has jumped to No. 2 there.
Still, the late theatrical run should help boost Birdman’s domestic total past $40 million. After all, Fox Searchlight knows what it’s doing. The distributor also handled 12 Years A Slave and saw its box office double the week after it won Best Picture, compared to the previous week.
Overall, the eight Best Picture nominees only grossed a combined $620 million before Sunday and over half of that was from Sniper alone.
Birdman won four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Original Screenplay.
image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com
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