Latino Box Office Magic

By Alisa Barba
September 03, 2013

Much has been written of late about the latent power of the Latino consumer.  We’ve heard about the “Latina Powershift” how women in Latino households not only hold the purse strings, but determine spending.

And that spending is a growing force in the economy.  A recent report out of Arizona found that U.S. Latinos are the 15th largest consumer market in the world and predicts that in the next three years their purchasing power will surge to $1.5 trillion annually.  

The media world is all over this market. Of course, there’s Univision, Telemundo, Fox News Latino, and a new Univision/ABC joint-venture called Fusion which will provide English-language programming for the Latino audience, starting this fall. 

There is also clear evidence, after this past weekend, that there’s a huge Latino consumer market for films. A sleeper film from Mexico called “Instructions Not Included” stunned pundits and critics alike with its box office success over Labor Day.  

It is Spanish-language comedy along the Kramer vs. Kramer theme: kid is dumped on playboy Dad who has no idea what to do. He ends up loving parenthood, then Mom comes back to claim her darling.

The star of the film is a Mexican superstar comedian named Eugenio Derbez. He not only stars in the film, but directed, co-wrote and produced it as well. He is apparently box office magic in Mexico, and among Latino audiences in this country as well. 

The film only opened in some 347 theatres across the country, but it grossed $10 million in the first four days, making it number five for the entire weekend. 

ABC News reports that:

In South Gate, a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood outside of Los Angeles, people waited an hour in line to secure tickets to the sold-out shows. The film is playing in about 60 screens in Los Angeles, home to the largest share of the United States’ Mexican population.

It is the biggest hit that distributor Pantelion films – a joint venture between Lionsgate and Mexico’s Televisa – has enjoyed in this country thus far. Moviefone.com opined that the distributor, seems to have “cracked the formula for reaching Spanish-speaking audiences in America.”

Film marketers must be watching closely. A recent Nielsen Company survey of American moviegoers found the following:

Hispanics were the heaviest moviegoers, as they represented 18 percent of the movie going population, but accounted for 25 percent of all movies seen. Hispanics were also the only demographic group that went to more movies in 2012 than in the prior year--9.5 movies on average compared with 8.5 in 2011.

 “Instructions Not Included” will open next weekend in 500 more theatres.

Instructions Not Included Official Trailer #1