While feature films in English Canada continue to struggle even with big P&A spends and promotional campaigns, the Quebec industry pumps out success stories in both languages.

Quebec director Lea Pool’s English-language feature The Blue Butterfly grossed $1.2 million in its first two weeks, making it the top-grossing domestic film with a per theater average of $6,511 for the week beginning Feb. 27.

After its Feb. 20 release through Odeon, the coproduction from Montreal’s Galafilm Productions and Global Arts in the U.K. not only jumped into first place among domestic films, but was also the only Canadian feature to rank among the top 10 grossing films in total.

Over its second weekend in theaters, March 5-7, the dramatic feature starring William Hurt generated $238,607 from 72 Quebec theaters and $6,460 from eight theaters in English Canada.

By comparison, despite $850,000 in P&A from distributors and $1-million worth of internal promotion by CHUM, the Space-branded Decoys could not avoid box-office doom in its opening week, grossing a disappointing $153,775. Distributed by Christal Films, with Lions Gate taking the helm in English Canada, Decoys was released Feb. 27 at 55 theaters (it was originally intended to hit 100 screens).

The $5-million sci-fi flick may not have made it at the box office, but it was not from lack of trying. In addition to its P&A spend and extensive promotion through CHUM, the feature, directed by Matt Hastings, was carefully targeted to teenage boys, boasting a cast full of scantily clad women, including the likes of former Baywatch babe Nicole Eggert. On its second weekend, Decoys brought in $33,700 from 31 screens, for a box-office total of $216,500 as of March 7.

After winning the best foreign-language film Oscar, Denys Arcand’s Les Invasions Barbares jumped back into the top-five homegrown films at number three. It brought in $113,632 from 22 screens in the week beginning Feb. 27, for a box-office total of $6.7 million.

Meanwhile, few films could ever hope to approach the astounding performance of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which grossed over US$200 million by the end of the March 5 weekend in North America, with just under $12 million of that generated by Canadian sales through distributor Equinoxe Films.