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{"id":2932,"date":"2005-03-22T13:12:00","date_gmt":"2005-03-22T13:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/03\/do-canadians-see-the-same-movies-as-americans\/"},"modified":"2005-03-22T13:12:00","modified_gmt":"2005-03-22T13:12:00","slug":"do-canadians-see-the-same-movies-as-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/03\/do-canadians-see-the-same-movies-as-americans.html","title":{"rendered":"Do Canadians see the same movies as Americans?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I like numbers, and I like comparing and contrasting different cultures, and last summer I discovered a website<\/a> that posts the weekend box-office figures for both Canada in particular and North America in general. So, naturally, I began keeping tabs on this site and noting which films appeared to be more or less popular in Canada than they were in the States.<\/span><\/p>\n

I actually first started thinking about this around the time I read a news report<\/a> to the effect that The Passion of the Christ<\/i> made about 7% of its money in Canada, a country that has about 10% of the combined Canadian-American population. And since The Passion<\/i> had broken The Return of the King<\/i>\u2018s record for a five-day opening<\/a>, I thought it was striking that it had made, in Canada, only half of what The Return of the King<\/i> made here.<\/p>\n

However, it wasn\u2019t until I began reading about Fahrenheit 9\/11<\/i>\u2018s popularity in Canada that I began to scour the web for some sort of freely available Canadian box-office report. After that, I kept tabs on the weekly top tens for that year at this other site<\/a> \u2014 and now I\u2019m going to do the same here. The totals for all the films that made the Canadian top tens in 2005 will be updated here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

FWIW, a few broad patterns have presented themselves already. Films with an African-American or \u201curban\u201d angle tend not to do quite so well in Canada, while films with a British or Asian angle will do better here than in the States.<\/p>\n

Some of the most glaring examples of this have occurred in just the past few weeks: On the one hand, Diary of a Mad Black Woman<\/i> opened at #1 in \u201cNorth America\u201d four weekends ago, but \u2014 despite being distributed by a Canadian-owned company! \u2014 it was not released in Canada at all until last Friday, and it still<\/i> failed to make a single appearance in our top ten. On the other hand, Bride and Prejudice<\/i> \u2014 a Bollywood riff on an English novel \u2014 has been in the Canadian top ten for the past four weekends, yet it has never been higher than #15 in \u201cNorth America\u201d. (An even more<\/i> glaring example would be the martial arts film Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior<\/i>, which opened at #4 in Canada over a month ago but has never been higher than #17 in \u201cNorth America\u201d.)<\/p>\n

So, without further ado, here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest.<\/p>\n

Bride and Prejudice<\/i> \u2014 CDN $1,306,771 \u2014 N.AM $4,812,473 \u2014 27.2%
Hostage<\/i> \u2014 CDN $2,417,521 \u2014 N.AM $19,503,139 \u2014 12.4%<\/span>
Million Dollar Baby<\/i> \u2014 CDN $9,075,366 \u2014 N.AM $89,943,692 \u2014 10.0%
Constantine<\/i> \u2014 CDN $7,018,363 \u2014 N.AM $70,382,151 \u2014 9.9%
Hitch<\/i> \u2014 CDN $14,946,875 \u2014 N.AM $159,325,368 \u2014 9.4%
Be Cool<\/i> \u2014 CDN $4,350,260 \u2014 N.AM $47,275,015 \u2014 9.2%
Ice Princess<\/i> \u2014 CDN $592,094 \u2014 N.AM $6,807,471 \u2014 8.7%<\/span>
Robots<\/i> \u2014 CDN $5,408,455 \u2014 N.AM $66,067,739 \u2014 8.2%
The Pacifier<\/i> \u2014 CDN $5,328,603 \u2014 N.AM $72,270,940 \u2014 7.4%
The Ring Two<\/i> \u2014 CDN $2,338,706 \u2014 N.AM $35,065,237 \u2014 6.7%<\/span><\/p>\n

A couple of discrepancies: Bride and Prejudice<\/i> was #10 on the Canadian chart (it was #15 in North America as a whole), while Diary of a Mad Black Woman<\/i> was #9 on the North American chart.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"