copperbadge:

Transformers: Age of Extinction, #1 at the box office this past week, averaged $23.6K per cinema, playing at 4233 cinemas.[1]

Snowpiercer, which did not make the top twenty, averaged $20.2K per cinema, playing at 8.[2]

If Snowpiercer had released in, say, 3750 locations, as 22 Jump Street (#2 at the box office this past week) did, and its average was the same, it would have grossed over $70M.

Now, there’s no knowing that the average would have been the same, since if only eight cinemas are playing it, everyone’s gonna cram their asses into those eight cinemas. But say it had a decent level of publicity, the way any normal Hollywood film would, and grossed half per cinema what it did. It still would have grossed $34M, double 22 Jump Street’s intake ($15.8M) for the week. That’s right: Snowpiercer, making half what it did per cinema this past week, would have made twice what 22 Jump Street made.

And that’s after pirate copies circulated the US for almost a year because we couldn’t get the real thing on the big screen.

Chug along, little train, chug along…