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for 1994

Total Canadian box office receipts for 1994 are estimated at between $340 million and $360 million, with True Lies, Speed and The Mask pulling in the highest grosses. In the Quebec theatrical market, total box office receipts for all movies released between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 1994 were $80 million.

Top Canadian films on Cineplex screens were Louis 19, le roi des ondes, Exotica and De L’amour et Des Restes (French market only).

Alliance Releasing topped the box office list in Canada in 1994 with receipts of $50.75 million (which includes figures for films still in release) at theaters across Canada.

The biggest hit for the Toronto-based company was the Jim Carrey vehicle, The Mask, which has grossed $15,808,473 and still tracking. Dumb and Dumber came in second at $12,511,290 and tracking, and the cult hit Pulp Fiction has grossed $8,213,930 to date.

Tony Cianciottia, vice-president, Alliance Releasing, says The Mask went far beyond expectations that it would pull in about $10 million at the box office.

‘It was a totally astounding year,’ says Cianciotta, ‘but each year we get a little bit better.’

In 1993, Alliance had a number of titles that performed between $500,000 and $1 million, such as Orlando and The Wedding Banquet, whereas in ’94, a few major titles had longer and more lucrative runs.

Plans are to keep Pulp Fiction in the theaters until April in the hope it will garner some statuettes at the Oscars. ‘It has no end to it. It could end up being a $10 million to $11 million movie, and if the picture wins, we can add another million in Canada.’ says Cianciotta.

For English-language Canadian titles, Alliance had the topper with Atom Egoyan’s Exotica, which has grossed $875,000 to date and is still tracking. Exotica got its start at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival when it won the Critics Prize and has since performed well around the world. In France, it has done $1,028,304 on only 25 screens in six weeks, and in Singapore – a country with a population of four million – it grossed $230,806 in 14 days on five screens.

Lea Pool’s Mouvement du Desir, with $170,055 at the box office to date, was Alliance’s second best Canadian performer, while Whale Music starring Maury Chaykin brought in a disappointing $70,017. In 1993, Paris, France was Alliance’s top Canadian title, earning over $250,000 at the box office. La Florida, after pulling in $1.6 million in French-language markets in ’93, grossed another $51,627 in English markets in ’94.

In 1994, Alliance renewed exclusive output deals with Channel Four, Fine Line and New Line Cinemas and signed a new deal with Miramax Films.

The top three Canadian movies for Cineplex last year were the Rhombus documentary Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould, Denys Arcand’s Love and Human Remain and John Greyson’s Zero Patience. (Cineplex would not disclose box office numbers for 1994.)

Cianciotta says the overall budget for promotion and advertising was exactly the same for Exotica as for Whale Music, ‘because we thought Whale Music was going to work as a love story and we were going to capture people’s imaginations through this sweet story. But never mind everybody, we didn’t even capture the Canadian film fans.’

In 1994, Alliance released 56 titles. Between 45 and 55 titles are on the 1995 slate, comparable to the ’93 crop.

For 1995, Cianciotta says he doesn’t see a Mask or a Dumber, but he does see a number of titles that have the potential of The Crying Game or Like Water for Chocolate, such as the u.k. film The Priest and the Aussie hit, Muriel’s Wedding. Johnny Mnemonic is a title Cianciotta is expecting big things from in 1995, saying it should, like Pulp Fiction, pull in $8 million to $10 million.

1994 matched 1993’s banner year for cfp, with 30 films pulling in box office receipts of about $12 million.

The top titles all performed between January and the end of September, with The Piano in the lead, grossing $6,790,564 ($5,540,564 in English-language markets, $1,250,000 in French). The Crow brought in $2,793,365 in English markets and $100,000 in French. House of the Spirits placed third with $1,021,730 ($797,996, English; $223,734, French). Bertolucci’s Little Buddha also ranked, pulling in $673,391 ($533,391 in English markets and $140,000 in French).

cfp had nine Canadian titles in release in 1994. Pierre Falardeau’s controversial Octobre hit the top of the list with $400,000 in French-language markets and $18,694 in English.

Kabloonak brought in $150,487 ($487 English/$150,000 French) and Myth of the Male Orgasm grossed $89,160 with close to $59,000 in English markets and $30,000 in French.

Among cfp’s English-language titles only Canadian releases, Ski School 2 tops the list with $3,324 to date. Red Hot ranks second with just over $2,400.

Other cfp Canadian titles were: Brigitte Berman’s Circle Game, which grossed $1,576 in English markets; Deadly Heroes, pulling in $1,702; and in exclusive English market releases, Raffle, tallying $2,081, and A Woman Scorned, which grossed $1,151.

In Quebec, cfp had three international titles that performed exceptionally well: La Reine Margot, the Isabelle Adjani vehicle which grossed $800,000; Germinal pulled in $500,000; and Colonel Chabert has grossed about $250,000 to date and still tracking.

‘It was a good year; it was a year of transition,’ says cfp senior vice-president Jeff Sackman.

Last year, cfp lost the Miramax deal to Alliance, bought out Famous Player’s 49% share in cfp, and began a repositioning that will see an increased emphasis on production.

Sackman is not enthralled with the buying options on the market, saying there is too much selling at inflated prices. ‘There are problems, not the least of which is our ability to acquire product at a fair market rate due to the status quo. Until legislation happens (to protect Canada as a distinct territory), we are going to continue to overpay.’

As for Canadian product, Sackman says theatrical is a tiny piece of the pie. ‘We pick up Canadian product that has potential in all media and we don’t fixate on theatrical because that hurts the other media (video, pay-tv).’

Promising titles on cfp’s 1995 slate include Jeffrey, John Sayles’ The Secret of Roan Inish and The Basketball Diaries, based on Jim Carroll’s book of the same name.

The total take for all films in Quebec was $88 million in 1994, says Carole Boudreault, president of Alex Films, a specialized industry consulting company which publishes Cine-Chriffes, a twice-weekly Quebec box-office report based on figures from 425 commercial screens across Quebec.

In 1994, 335 films were launched commercially in Quebec – 189 American, 37 Canadian, 63 French and 46 foreign films (including films from the u.k.).

u.s. films garnered 85% of the box office with 56% of the titles; Canadian films had 4% of the box office with 11% of releases; French films took in 5% of the total, but had 19% of all releases; and foreign films took in 6% of the box office with 14% of releases.

More than half

Of the $68 million which went to u.s. releases, 18 films took in more than half the total.

Says Boudreault: ‘A minority of u.s. films take in most of the box office, everywhere: in theaters, in video on television. It’s a real monopoly.’

According to Alex Films, the top Quebec box office performers among Canadian films released in 1994 are: Louis 19, le roi des ondes, $1.8 million (Malofilm Distribution), Octobre, $400,000 (cfp); Love and Human Remains, $359,097 (Max Films Communications); Le Vent du Wyoming, $186,835 (Malofilm); Mouvement du desir, $132,585 (Alliance Vivafilm); The Return of Tommy Tricker, $97,124 (Malofilm); The Myth of the Male Orgasm (cfp); C’etait le 12 de 12 et Chili avait le blues, $34,392 (Alliance Vivafilm); and Mon Amie Max, $31,509 (cfp).

In Quebec, Louis 19, The 1994 Golden Reel Award winner, ranked eighth among all films.

The Flintstones

The number-one grossing film in Quebec last year was The Flintstones with total receipts of $5.2 million, with more than $4 million from the French-language version.

The top-performing French films in 1994 were cfp’s La Reine Margot ($800,000) and Le Fille d’Artagnan, $353,000 (Malofilm).

According to Instit quebecois du cinema, 1994 results for Quebec films in theaters showed a marked improvement over 1993.

The iqc says 1994 was the best year for domestic film since 1990, and the third best year in the past seven. Total receipts rose to $4 million in ’94 against $3.1 million in ’93, while the number of films with a take of more than $300,000 was four, compared to three the preceding year. The average run in 1994 stretched to seven weeks, up from five weeks in 1993.

Commenting on the Quebec market, Alliance Vivafilm vice-president, marketing, communications and development Pierre Brousseau says: ‘I think (1994) is our best year ever.’

Brousseau says the ’94 bumper crop for Quebec includes The Mask, $3.5 million; Pulp Fiction, $1.1 million; Dumb and Dumber, close to $2 million; and the French-track version of The Jungle Book, $1 million. Pret a Porter did about $300,000 at the Quebec box office, he says, ‘despite a very bad sound track.’

In the year ahead, Alliance expects to do lively business with three Quebec films: Charles Biname’s Eldorado, set for March 3 release; Robert Lepage’s Le Confessional, set for an October date with a possible launch at the Cannes Film Festival; and Andre Turpin’s Zigrail, set for early June.

Brousseau says the Gen-x film Eldorado is ‘one of the best Canadian films I’ve seen in the past five years. It’s vibrant, really on the edge.’

‘It doesn’t make me popular to say so, but there are too many distributors and half of them are simply incompetent. They don’t know the market. They’re just messing up,’ he says.

Brousseau says the art film circuit exists, but outside of this, film is strictly a mass-media business.

‘If you do your own little story for family and friends, using millions and millions of dollars in public funds, it’s simply criminal,’ he says.

In 1994, Imax’s top-grossing film was Titanica which pulled in $2.4 million. Imax’s 11 theatres in Canada did approximately $15 million in box office receipts in 1994.

According to a Variety report on u.s. box office, Canadian features fought it out on the same scale as many foreign and independent releases and some studio fare. In u.s. dollars, Louis 19 grossed close to $1.6 million, Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould brought in $1.57 million, Matusalem earned just under $1 million, Exotica grossed just over $700,000, Love and Human Remains earned $414,454, Octobre came in at just under $350,000, Zero Patience and The Boys of Saint Vincent each grossed slightly over $200,000, Camilla and Le Vent du Wyoming did about $180,000 and $170,000 respectively, Mouvement du Desir grossed just over $100,000, The Myth of the Male Orgasm pulled in just under $50,000, and Whale Music flopped with $39,129.