"Arrival" earned a whopping $24 million on its first week; giving it a good chance on the awards season
Paramount's "Arrival" did give a welcoming note as it already achieved $24 million in only 4 days in theaters, receiving positive critics and a chance for an Oscar nominee. "Arrival" stars Amy Adams as a Linguist who will decipher the alien language to know their intentions, together with Jeremy Renner as a military astrophysicist in love with Adams, as well as Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma and Mark O'Brien. The science fiction drama film is directed by Denis Villeneuve and has earlier premiered at the Venice Film Festival last September 2016.
With this week's "Doctor Strange" and "Trolls" premiere, "Arrival" landed at third place which was a great unexpected moment for Paramount, considering its budget, Vulture gives the film a solid success. As more films opted out to franchises, original stories are a big risk for filmmakers, but with "Arrival", the storyline had a good stride and resourcefulness, that came from a good direction of its director and the appeal of its actors and actresses. It is no doubt in a very good timing for the awards while it showcasing the talents of Amy Adam who has been into numerous Oscar and Academy Award nominations.
What had prompted the success of "Arrival" when it lines up in the weekend with big-budget films with an almost non-stop marketing? Variety has put in 5 reasons for its unexpected success, with its first reason to be Amy Adams lead role in the film, which is a sci-fi film, usually casting a leading man. It gave the movie a "fresh" storyline and Adam's appeal that viewers seemingly enjoyed, apart from Paramount's marketing strategy to restrain from showing too many updates and teasers.
The film's financiers budgeted well the film, with respected actors than bankable ones and the drive to earn the interests of older audiences and gain more viewers through word-of-mouth and good reviews. It is true that "Sometimes the best advertisement for the movie is the movie itself" as noted by Davies of Paramount. Also, the timing of election with all those who want to escape the results and get their minds off with Trump's victory or Hillary's loss paved the way to moviegoers to explore the cinemas.
