Fox Searchlight plans to add about 500 theaters this weekend for director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave after Sunday night’s Best Motion Picture – Drama win at the Golden Globe Awards, with a goal of reaching 1,000 runs in the next two weeks. After getting such nods from the Globes and Oscar nominations, a studio often ups its runs of the film when it can using those awards and nominations as a marketing tool. New ads touting the nominations and wins are traditionally done and then blasted out into the marketplace. Award nominations and wins, especially for the Oscars, means cash at the box office.The Golden Globe and expected Oscar nominations for picture, acting and directing categories for Slave is marketing you can’t buy. The critically-acclaimed film, having received a bevy of nominations from BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), just opened in the UK on 208 screens to quickly grab the No. 1 spot with a strong $4.2M take over the weekend. Internationally, it has yet to debut in Germany, France, Australia, Mexico, Brazil and Japan among others. Domestically, it has grossed $38.9M since being released in a limited run October 18. “What we’re looking at is what we call a two-step. We will be adding theaters both this weekend and next weekend, going back into some of the art theaters that we were in before,” said Frank Rodriguez, head of distribution for Fox Searchlight. “Based on the Golden Globe win and expectations for it do well with the Oscar nominations on Thursday, we will pop it up over the next couple of weeks and hope to get to into 1,000 theaters by Jan. 24th.”
article by Anita Busch via Deadline.com