3D adventure drama movie “Hugo” surpassed its expected performance during thanksgiving holiday though it needs to perform better to become a profitable movie. It was the first movie created by Martin Scorsese with regard to family movie. Producers of the movie spend about $150 million to come up with “Hugo” but it only generated $15.4 million after five days of being shown in the big screens. About 1, 277 cinemas opened for the movie all over the United States and Canada.
Graham King’s GK Films along with Infinitum Nihil of Johnny Depp co-produced the movie. The film was distributed by Paramount. Paramount is just expecting about $10 to 12 million gross from its first weekend but it grossed higher. Other producers state that the movie will hardly generate high profit if it only performs the same in few days to come. However, paramount still believe that the movie will perform better in the next few weeks.
Because of the movie’s performance, a producer of the film inquire about the star power of celebrities who starred in the film. This producer is talking about Ben Kingsley and Sacha Baron Cohen. On the other hand, Rival studio’s marketing executive claimed that people who viewed “Hugo” liked the movie. Despite of that general impression people expressed towards the film, a lot of people prefer the movie “Happy Feet” and “The Muppets” for the family instead of “Hugo”.
According to the president of marketing distribution of Paramount Megan Colligan, they still believe that as they support the movie by expanding, “Hugo” can still recuperate to its present status. She also emphasized that they intentionally opened the movie for 1, 277 theaters compared to 3, 440 theaters for “The Muppets” of Disney along with 3, 376 locations for “Arthur Christmas” of Sony/Aardman. In addition, she also stated that when it comes to gross per theater, “Hugo” is almost equal to that of “The Muppets”. Hugo has an average gross of $12, 043 per location while “The Muppets” generated an average of $12, 209.
Colligan also claimed that the movie was reviewed thoroughly before its release. In fact, it received remarkable 96 percent new rating from Rotten Tomatoes last Monday. She is expecting that those critical commendations will propel into nominations during awards night as well as serve as a magnet to pull audiences. She is confident that the studio’s strategy is good enough. They are expecting for higher gross as they open another 1, 800 locations this weekend and expand even more the following week. A box office watcher is not as optimistic as Colligan with regard to the movie.
The story of “Hugo” was based on the novel written by Brian Selznick entitled “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”. It is about the story of a boy living alone in Paris Train Station and a mysterious toyshop owner. John Logan wrote the script of the movie. It was released in the big screen starting November 23. Other celebrities who appear in the movie are Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ray Minstone, Emily Mortimer and Jude Law.


