It’s no particular secret that 2012 was not a good year for Latinos at the box office. It may have been more about bad timing and the luck of the draw than any intentional exclusion, but very few of the major Latino stars or directors were involved in the big, big movies of 2012, and what few projects did appear did not perform well.
That’s why it’s good to see that more than half of the top ten movies at the end of January had Latinos in significant roles in front or behind the camera, including some of the most profitable films of the year (so far).
Virtually everyone was amazed when Mama, from Spanish director Andrew Muschetti and Latino phenomenon Guillermo del Toro, blew out the box office in Week One. Now, with only two weeks in release, the ‘little’ $15 million dollar horror film has already grossed more than three times its budget domestically, and it’s barely begun foreign distribution, which promises to be very healthy.
Édgar Ramírez is part of the team that brings down Osama bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty, which came in #4 as the top grosser for the last weekend of the month and has already entered (technically) profitable territory, as well as garnered a great deal of attention in the Awards derby.
Despite some scathing reviews, Parker, Jennifer Lopez’ return to thrillers, earned more than $7 million in its first weekend, with healthy per-theater numbers as well. It’s odd that Lopez’ highly recognizable image, despite her high profile on television and in pop music, wasn’t even in the promotional posters, and ‘celebrity’ marketing (i.e., appearances on talk shows and magazine shows) was virtually non-existent. Still: #5 for the week.
Nichole Galicia is in a key role in Django Unchained, which just passed a quarter of a billion dollars in box office worldwide. True, the picture cost over $100 million to produce, but a 250% return on investment in five weeks of release is more than a little impressive.
Meanwhile, the unlucky Gangster Squad with Michael Peña and the surprisingly underperforming Broken City with Natalie Martinez won’t win any awards for b.o. or ROI, but they rounded out the top ten for the week, each making more domestically than the tail end of the big movies from December, like Les Miserables, Lincoln, or The Hobbit.
It’s far from the perfect picture. Only one of those movies–Parker, which is not doing all that well–has a Latino in a leading role. And a single box-office snapshots like this can be deceiving–there are clearly a couple of box-office clinkers in this group, despite the most recent numbers. But you can’t deny the significant, long-term success of Mama and Django, among others, and the simple, enduring fact is that there are a lot of films with Latinos in the mix hovering around the top of the box office listings in January. And that’s always encouraging.
