‘The Butler’ tries capture audience that turned ‘The Help’ into box office hit

theGRIO REPORT - Lee Daniels' highly anticipated and critically acclaimed new film The Butler opens this weekend, and while it is far from typical summer movie fare, producers still expect the film to perform well at the box office...

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

Lee Daniels’ highly anticipated and critically acclaimed new film The Butler opens this weekend, and while it is far from typical summer movie fare, producers still expect the film to perform well at the box office.

Despite boasting an all-star cast including Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey and many more, the historical subject matter and African-American themes have not traditionally brought in blockbuster numbers.

Film-goers may remember movies like Glory, Amistad and Rosewood fondly, but they were also all flops financially.

A recent notable exception was Disney’s The Help. The film, which won Octavia Spencer an Oscar and established Viola Davis as a bonafide movie star, opened around the same time as The Butler in August 2011.

Just like The Butler, The Help opened against an established franchise. While the comic-book sequel Kick Ass 2 is the main competition for the Daniels’ film, the period story of black maids opened during the second weekend of the breakout action blockbuster reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

The Help held its own, coming in a close second to Apes (with $26 million) and a scoring a rare A+ Cinemascore grade from audiences.

The movie held up remarkably well in the ensuing weeks and wound up with a massive $169 million at the box office, practically unheard of numbers for a film with no superheroes or special effects.

Of course, besides word of mouth, The Help benefited from being based on a national best-selling book which had already crossed over and found success with non-white audiences.

The Butler may have more of an uphill climb. The source material for the movie, the life of longtime White House service worker Eugene Allen, is not as familiar to audiences. And for every film-goer who might be intrigued to see its cavalcade of stars portraying real-life historical figures, there might be another who finds the stunt casting distracting or off-putting.

Still, with strong Oscar buzz and a considerable promotional blitz (especially on Oprah’s part), audience awareness for the movie and prognosticators believe the film should open in low $20 million range.

If the film can show some staying power it will go a long way to solidifying its standing come awards season

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