Monday, January 09, 2006

   So, how expensive was Jordan Commons' decision to cancel "Brokeback Mountain's" opening weekend on Friday?

    The acclaimed Western drama, about two Wyoming sheep ranchers who find themselves in love, took in $5.75 million at 484 theaters nationwide -- for a per-screen average of $11,881.

    Compare that to the $9,157 per-screen average earned by the weekend's box-office champ, the R-rated torture-chamber horror flick "Hostel," which opened at 2,195 theaters for an estimated total of $20.1 million. (Here's the AP story.)

    But let's look four weeks down the road. "Hostel" will probably peter out well before February, because horror movies usually have strong openings and steep declines. But four weeks from now, we will know how many Oscar nominations "Brokeback Mountain" will receive -- and even more moviegoers will get curious and want to take a look.

    The cancellation also has stirred up talk, sporadic and disorganized so far, of boycotts against not only Jordan Commons but Larry H. Miller's other holdings -- from his auto dealerships to the Utah Jazz. There's even a chance Megaplex theaters will lose future bookings from "Brokeback's" distributor, Focus Features, and maybe even its parent company, Universal Studios (whose upcoming titles include "Curious George" and "Miami Vice"). All this when Jordan Commons has a new competitior in Sandy, the Century 16 at Union Heights.

   

   

    -- After Saturday's story about the Jordan Commons incident ran, I received an e-mail from a Virginia bed-and-breakfast owner who made what was, to her, a crucial point: "The movie's characters are not cowboys. They are sheepherders. The word "cowboy" refers to herding cows not sheep. Please issue a correction. Thank you."

    True, the two characters meet while tending sheep in Wyoming. But Jake Gyllenhaal's character is also a rodeo bull-rider, which seems cowboy enough to me.

    I've heard this "they're not cowboys" comment from a few folks in cattle country - sometimes with a slightly defensive tone. It's almost as if they're saying, "Oh, we don't have any gay cowboys, but those sheep ranchers are as queer as a three-dollar bill." Since my experience as a cowboy ends with my high-school production of "Oklahoma!" ("Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends..."), I leave this distinction to others.

   

    -- Sandy wasn't the only town in America where "Brokeback Mountain" was mysteriously pulled on Friday. In Poulsbo, Wash., a 10-screen theater run by the Regal chain had scheduled the movie, but cancelled at the last minute. Regal officials told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that it was just a matter of not having a print available. (Here's the P-I's story.)

   

    -- The other e-mails I received Saturday ran the gamut. A few of them were rude and unprintable. Here's a sampling of the rest:

    -- "I find it ironic that a building that used to house a fine high school is now home to stonewalling and bigotry."

    -- "Why is some lady's plight of not being able to see ‘Brokeback Mountain' at Jordan Commons worthy of a front page story? My wife went to the Century Theaters last Sunday only to find that the movie listings in the Tribune were wrong. You should get a reporter on this right away! I think the real story is that the Tribune is using the front page to push their gay agenda. You may want to hype up this movie and make it seem mainstream, but it is not."

    -- "What kind of sick and twisted perversions is Larry H. Miller trying to push on Salt Lake City by cutting any showings of "Brokeback Mountain" but then also having a full schedule of showings of this brutal and sick "movie" called "Hostel"? He promotes torture and killing, yet won't show a movie that the whole country is waiting to see?"