Red Lights: Spanish cinema’s first box office hit for 2012
- Rodrigo Cortés’ third feature, starring Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver, has made €1.12m at the box office over its first weekend
Finally, this year’s first Spanish box office hit! Although its
results were only good, with no surprises or fiascos, Red Lights [+see also:
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Cortés
film profile] by
Rodrigo Cortés (read the interview), arrived
second at the box office last weekend with €1.12m in box office
receipts and an average per copy of €3,630, according to Rentrak
Spain.
A little more had been expected of this thriller, with its good - if
not enthusiastic - reviews at Sundance and its aura of a good
international film starring Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver, and
Cillian Murphy. Cortés’ previous film, Buried [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Cortés
film profile], had left
audiences impressed, but its final box office results were a little
short off the mark, because of an incredibly complex plot (90 minutes
inside a coffin is not a great way to attract the general public!) and
minimum efforts to promote it. Red Lights however was made for
a wider public and had great promotional support from
television channel Antena 3, one of the
film’s co-producers . Thus, box office figures for Red Lights
in its first weekend were almost double those of Buried -
€650,000 -, although the average takings per copy were very similar.
The film has enjoyed an impressive advertising campaign via social media, where Cortés is very present, especially on Twitter. Between the film’s premiere at Sundance and its release in Spain, the young director told the film’s inside story in a very personal style, and communicated directly with his audience.
It wasn’t very difficult for Red Lights to become Spain’s
best release of 2012 so far. This year’s first two months
witnessed a succession of more or less failed releases, from films
with great potential (Ghost Graduation [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by
Javier Ruiz Caldera, which made about €2m, or Dark Impulse [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by
Mariano Barroso) to other more modest films (Katmandú, un espejo en el
cielo by Icíar Bollaín, or Frozen Silence [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gerardo Herrero
film profile] by
Gerardo Herrero).
(Translated from Spanish)
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