The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
nearly double its production budget. The film from Lionsgate and CBS Films is centered on two teens with cystic fibrosis.
Audiences were overwhelmingly female (82 percent) and young (65 percent under age 25 and 45 percent under 18). That the stars involved, like Sprouse who is in the popular TV show “Riverdale,” have a strong fan base and social following motivated young women to turn out to the theaters.
“You don’t always have to be No. 1 to have a success,” Dergarabedian said. “And ‘Five Feet Apart’ proves that.”
It was a good weekend overall for Lionsgate, which had three films in the top 10, including “Five Feet Apart,” Tyler Perry’s “A Madea Family Funeral,” which landed in fifth place with $8.1 million (behind “How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”) and the Spanish-language newcomer “No Manches Frida 2,” which opened on only 472 screens and grossed $3.9 million to take sixth place.
“In the world of everybody talking about diversity, this is a great example of a diverse lineup. All three films were completely different, which was obviously a strategic distribution decision,” said David Spitz, Lionsgate’s president of domestic distribution. “Those three films were able to capture an audience even with the 300-pound gorilla of `Captain Marvel.“’
Not so lucky was “Captive State,” an alien invasion thriller from Focus Features that floundered in seventh place with $3.2 million against a $25 million budget.