Tell 'Em The Power of Christ Compels You

As you can imagine, The Exorcist appears prominently in my '70s film book, The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane; for that matter, so does director Paul Schrader. So I was amused to hear that Morgan Creek is going to release Schrader's Exorcist prequel this weekend. You may recall that after Schrader turned in his film, the studio had so little faith in it that they went out and hired Renny Harlin to do the whole thing over from scratch. That film tanked in theaters last year, and I'd like to believe the "real" film can do better.

Here's the math: Harlin's film grossed $18.05 million on 2,803 screens opening weekend, which averages to $6441 a screen. Now here's some educated guesses: let's estimate the national average movie ticket is $9. (Obviously, this is very rough, and I'm not even pretending to deal with matinee pricing.) That gives us roughly 715 ticket buyers at each screen. Let's make another estimate: five shows a day, three days, equals fifteen shows at each screen. That gives us an average of 48 ticket buyers for the average opening weekend showing. Considering that most decent movie screens hold--what, anywhere from 100 to 300 people?--that's pretty lame.

Now, Box Office Mojo tells me Schrader's film, titled Dominion, is only opening on 110 screens. Obviously, that rules out an $18 million weekend. But...110 screens, fifteen shows at each screen, gives us 1,650 shows. 48 ticket buyers per show at $9 a ticket gives us $432 a show, which would add up to $712,800. And that's just to match the performance level of Harlin's version. As I say, I believe that we can totally surpass that. Now help me prove it--and get all your friends to join in!