…to the producers of the Cesar Chavez biopic. Opening weekend is a make-or-break time for a movie, a trend that has accelerated in recent years. In the 1980s, opening weekend accounted for only about 15 percent of a movie’s box office; now it can be more than twice that much. “A bad opening will usually kill a movie and kills all the potentials of the movie,” Bob Levin, a top MGM executive, said on a PBS special about the topic. “It becomes critical for the entire life of the movie.”
So that’s why the producers and distributors of “Cesar Chavez,” and the Chavez Foundation, are pulling out all the stops to get people into theaters on opening weekend. Director Diego Luna hit the college circuit last week with personal appearances and advance screenings sponsored by Chicano and Latin American Studies institutes at Harvard, Berkeley, UC Irvine and UCLA. The UFW is trying to get supporters to buy bulk tickets. And the union is also using the movie for its own fundraising purposes – they are holding special screenings all over California and in DC with VIP tickets costing up to $200.
Luna has used his personal charm and star power to plead with audiences to help send a message to Hollywood that movies like this need to be financed. I’ll have more to say about the movie, which the producers describe as the Chavez family’s story, in the coming days. It has its American premiere Monday March 10 at SXSW in Austin.
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