{"id":1978,"date":"2006-10-12T10:46:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-12T10:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/10\/bon-cop-bad-cop-spinning-the-numbers\/"},"modified":"2006-10-12T10:46:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-12T10:46:00","slug":"bon-cop-bad-cop-spinning-the-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/10\/bon-cop-bad-cop-spinning-the-numbers.html","title":{"rendered":"Bon Cop, Bad Cop — spinning the numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
There are any number of ways to spin the box-office success of Bon Cop, Bad Cop<\/a><\/i>, as today\u2019s Toronto Star<\/a><\/i> demonstrates:<\/span><\/p>\n

On the face of it, the numbers tell the story.<\/p>\n

Bon Cop, Bad Cop<\/i> has taken in $11.3 million. That piggy movie of yesteryear took in $11.2 million. Declaring victory, Vivafilm, the Montreal distribution arm of Alliance Atlantis, has issued its own feel-good statement: \u201cThe goal was to be the first completely bilingual production to entertain audiences from coast to coast. We are proud to say we have achieved that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe, but to compare 2006 grosses with 1981 grosses is at best na\u00efve \u2014 at worst grossly misleading. As one film industry veteran put it, \u201cThat\u2019s like comparing apples to crabapples.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adjusted for inflation, the box office take for Porky\u2019s<\/i> equals about $22 million in 2006 dollars.<\/p>\n

And by the way, unlike most Canadian movies that do well at home, Porky\u2019s<\/i> took in close to $100 million in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Still, the relative success of Bon Cop, Bad Cop<\/i> is a hopeful sign in the eyes of Telefilm CEO Wayne Clarkson. . . .<\/p>\n

As for going head to head with Porky\u2019s<\/i>, Clarkson says: \u201cThe English language market is so much more competitive now than it was in 1981 that a comparison is almost meaningless. Because of DVDs and 500 TV channels and the Internet, it\u2019s much harder now to break through and find a big audience.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Got that? On the one hand, dollars were worth a lot more back in the era of Porky\u2019s<\/i> than they do now. On the other hand, dollars were easier to rake in at the box office in the era of Porky\u2019s<\/i> than they are now. So I guess it all kind of balances out.<\/p>\n

Plus, one can always argue that Porky\u2019s<\/i> owes its Canadian success to the fact that everyone here assumed it was just another American blockbuster, whereas Bon Cop, Bad Cop<\/i> could never be mistaken for anything other than Canadian cheese.<\/p>\n

Oh, and then there are the confusing questions of currency exchanges and of whether or not the North American box-office take for Porky\u2019s<\/i> includes the Canadian revenues.<\/p>\n

Ordinarily, I would assume it does \u2014 and based on a story that ran in Variety<\/i> eight years ago (see below, in the comments to this post), I believe Canadian dollars are normally counted as equivalent to American dollars, for the purposes of much-hyped box-office stats such as these. (What the accounting departments at the various studios do is an altogether separate matter.)<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s confusing when the Hollywood Reporter<\/i>, via Reuters<\/a>, opts to convert<\/i> the currencies in this one film\u2019s case:<\/p>\n

Erik Canuel\u2019s bilingual buddy picture, which bowed August 4, was within a whisker of the C$11.2 million ($10.2 million) in gross receipts reached by Porky\u2019s,\u201d according to distributor Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution LP.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who knows, this may explain the discrepancy between the Variety<\/i> and Canadian Press stories that I noted earlier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Star<\/i> also makes the ludicrous claim that Bon Cop, Bad Cop<\/i> \u201cis a crowd-pleaser that lets nationalists rally round the flag.\u201d<\/p>\n

Um, no. Quite frankly, it is more than a little problematic that the advertising for this movie juxtaposed the maple leaf with the fleur-de-lis, as though the maple leaf represented only anglophones; and it\u2019s hard to get excited about any film in which the Ontario cop\u2019s sister, made up like the tart in some Denys Arcand<\/a> film from the 1980s, finds her ultimate sexual satisfaction while loudly exclaiming a separatist Quebecois slogan.<\/p>\n

Again, check out what Steve Burgess<\/a> had to say about this film.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are any number of ways to spin the box-office success of Bon Cop, Bad Cop, as today\u2019s Toronto Star demonstrates: On the face of it, the numbers tell the story. Bon Cop, Bad Cop has taken in $11.3 million. That piggy movie of yesteryear took in $11.2 million. Declaring victory, Vivafilm, the Montreal distribution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBon Cop, Bad Cop -- spinning the numbers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are any number of ways to spin the box-office success of Bon Cop, Bad Cop, as today's Toronto Star demonstrates:On the face of it, the numbers tell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/10\/bon-cop-bad-cop-spinning-the-numbers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bon Cop, Bad Cop -- spinning the numbers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are any number of ways to spin the box-office success of Bon Cop, Bad Cop, as today's Toronto Star demonstrates:On the face of it, the numbers tell\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/10\/bon-cop-bad-cop-spinning-the-numbers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-10-12T10:46:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/400\/boncopbadcop.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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