| | |  Entertainment | January 2009 
‘Sin Nombre’ Seeks to Turn Sundance Win Into Box-Office Payday
 Michael White - Bloomberg
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| | Sin Nombre - A Focus Features release of a Primary Prods./Canana production. Produced by Amy Kaufman. Executive producers, Gerardo Barrera, Pablo Cruz, Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal. Directed, written by Cary Joji Fukunaga. | |
Focus Features’ “Sin Nombre” won critical praise and the best-director prize at the Sundance Film Festival this month, beating 15 other films.
The next challenge is to convince English speakers to turn out for the violent, R-rated picture, filmed in Spanish with a cast of little-known actors from Latin America.
Focus, part of General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal Inc., plans to market the movie to U.S. Hispanics and the art-house audiences that helped turn Spanish-language “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Maria Full of Grace” into moneymakers.
Oscar-nominated “Slumdog Millionaire,” which uses subtitles for portions recorded in Hindi, gives cause for optimism, Focus Co-President James Schamus said in an interview.
“People are ready,” Schamus said. “You get the word out to the core audience and really let the movie do a lot of the magic for you.”
“Pan’s Labyrinth” took in $37.6 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales for Time Warner Inc. - the most for a Spanish-language film, according to box office researcher Media By Numbers LLC. The 2006 release cost $19 million to make and generated worldwide ticket sales of $83.3 million, according to Box Office Mojo LLC.
“Maria Full of Grace,” released by Time Warner in 2004, took in $6.5 million domestically and $12.6 million worldwide.
Like “Sin Nombre” (“nameless” or “without a name”), those films had “R” ratings and serious storylines. “Pan’s Labyrinth,” directed by Guillermo del Toro, followed a girl in fascist Spain who escapes into a fantasy world. “Maria Full of Grace” told of a poor Colombian woman who swallowed capsules of cocaine to smuggle into the U.S.
‘Dark, Subtitled’
“On the face of it, an R-rated, dark movie that’s subtitled doesn’t call out, ‘Box office hit!’” said Media By Numbers President Paul Dergarabedian. “For any foreign-language films to do more than $5 million is an achievement.”
“Sin Nombre” traces a young man’s flight through Mexico to the U.S. after he runs afoul of a violent gang. Schamus, who helped to produce Oscar nominee “Brokeback Mountain” and director Ang Lee’s Chinese-language “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” wouldn’t say how much the movie, filmed in Mexico, cost to make.
“Maria Full of Grace,” shot in the U.S. and South America and also lacking big-name stars, cost $3 million, according to IMDb.com, which tracks film industry statistics.
Focus held a test-screening before a Hispanic audience in Los Angeles before taking “Sin Nombre” to Sundance, Schamus said. Focus plans to open the movie in a handful of cities on March 20 and expand gradually, advertising in newspapers and on television.
Hoodlum on the Run
“The foreign-language part is not such a challenge,” “Sin Nombre” first-time director Cary Joji Fukunaga, 32, said in an interview. “Films like ‘Slumdog’ have warmed audiences to watching movies with subtitles.”
With a production budget of about $15 million, “Slumdog,” has taken in $87.1 million worldwide for distributor Fox Searchlight, according to Box Office Mojo. The movie, nominated for 10 Academy Awards and directed by Danny Boyle, tells the story of a Mumbai orphan who seeks his fortune on a television quiz show.
“Sin Nombre” stars Edgar Flores as Willy, a young hoodlum who goes on the run after a deadly clash with fellow members of Mara Salvatrucha, a street gang with members in Mexico, Central America and the U.S. Willy reluctantly takes responsibility for a Honduran girl, played by Paulina Gaitan, who is separated from relatives during a journey to the U.S.
The film was inspired by newspaper articles Fukunaga read about the risks immigrants take to reach the U.S., he said. To research the film, he traveled three times from Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas to the U.S. border.
Riding Atop Trains
Many of the characters were based on immigrants the director met while riding atop freight trains, or by real Mara Salvatrucha members he talked with in a Mexican prison, Fukunaga said.
Fukunaga filmed on location in Mexican rail yards, recruiting locals to climb aboard a rented train for scenes, he said. On his first trip, a man was murdered by bandits in the car ahead, Fukunaga said. The experience informed one of his movie’s pivotal scenes, in which Mara Salvatrucha members terrorize northbound immigrants atop a moving train.
Focus Features agreed to the make the movie after executives saw a short film Fukunaga brought to Sundance in 2005, said Schamus.
“We loved his short film and just felt this guy had the humanity and the vision to do something completely original,” said Schamus. “We’re hopeful the word-of-mouth supported portion is going to grow the film.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael White in Los Angeles at mwhite(at)bloomberg.net. |
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