Oh dear. Irish film is an awfully hard sell at the best of times. So why have we ended up with six Irish releases crammed into the space of as many weeks?
March brought Earthbound and Good Vibrations . Did you notice? Only kind of. The latter, despite rave notices and much goodwill, exited the ROI top 10 with an underwhelming €71,588. Word of mouth, celebrity endorsements and the film's high feel-good factor may still push that total up. We hope. Good Vibrations also continues to ride high in Northern Ireland where it remains at No 8 with the sixth highest screen average and where, evidently, they have better taste in movies.
Earthbound , meanwhile, grossed just under €6,000 on its run – and only €374 during its second weekend on release. That's a bone-rattling 88 per cent drop in business. Ouch.
Things are not looking hopeful for incoming Irish contenders King of the Travellers, The Frames: In the Deep Shade and Jump . The crazy national crush – why, everybody, why? – may well have scuppered any chance these films had of making a splash at the box office. Our national cinema, as we like to conveniently forget, hasn't produced a hit since The Guard. And tent-pole season hits at the end of this month with Iron Man 3 (the best of the Marvel movies to date, no fooling) and Star Trek Into Darkness .
Jump and King of the Travellers will have trouble shifting units in a market where the Golden Rule is: Who's in it? See Tom Cruise straddling the top spot with Oblivion 's running total of €433,958. See also Ryan Gosling in The Place Beyond the Pines in fourth spot with €59,750 and the ROI's highest screen average.
The Frames: In the Deep Shade , already inhibited by its Irishness, is doubly blighted because it's a music documentary. That genre has been box office poison since the turn of the century: Snoop Dogg's Reincarnated made just over €200 on its opening weekend; Dave Grohl's Sound City took weeks to limp past €3,000.
Happily, Pilgrim Hill has bucked the anti-Irish trend at the Irish box office. Gerard Barrett's fine first feature made €12,310 from seven sites with a healthy €1,539 screen average. That's good going for an independent film of any nationality: controversial Cannes prize-winner Post Tenebras Lux took just €340 during its opening weekend.
Another small but sweet success was Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers , which has already scared up €83,012 in ticket sales. And watch out for Side Effects , arguably this quarter's most surprising hit, still hanging in the top 10 with a running total of €646,806.
As with last month, the terrifying truth is that children are now the Irish movieverse's primary demographic. The Croods has done almost €2 million worth of ticket sales after just four weeks on release; The Odd Life of Timothy Green holds the No 7 spot, with €82,065 to date.
Where have all the grown-ups gone? We've seen Children of the Corn. This won't end well.
