Counting the “Beer” money
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The Toby Keith-Rodney Carrington film “Beer for My Horses” opened in limited release last Friday and ranked as the No. 1 movie in 20 theater complexes.
The action-comedy was No. 1 in theaters in Oklahoma City; Tulsa; Indianapolis; Pittsburgh, Penn.; Nashville, Tenn.; Little Rock, Ark.; and Buffalo, N.Y., according to a news release.
According to the box office tracking site The Numbers (www.the-numbers.com), “Beer for My Horses” made $209, 253 while playing in 91 theaters in its opening weekend. That equals $2,299 per theater and landed the movie at No. 26 on the box office chart.
Just for comparison’s sake, that’s actually more than the Weinstein Co.’s Quentin Tarantino-produced biker adventure “Hell Ride,” which also opened last weekend in limited release, though clearly in different markets than “Beer for My Horses.” “Hell Ride” opened at No. 35 with $100,164 in 82 theaters for a take of $1,222 per theater.
Of course, for another comparison, “Beer for My Horses” made less than the Australian/Indian comedy “Singh Is Kinng,” which opened last weekend at No. 14 with almost $1.2 million in 112 theaters. That’s $10,703 per theater.
The movie stars Keith and Carrington, who co-wrote the script, as Rack and Lonnie, small-town Oklahoma sheriff’s deputies who defy their boss and pursue a Mexican drug lord after he kidnaps Rack’s girlfriend (Claire Forlani).
The news release from Keith’s publicist notes the mostly positive reviews for the movie from Tulsa Today, The Tennessean, The Buffalo News, Yahoo! Movies and myself. The consensus among us is that “Beer for My Horses” will please fans of Keith and Carrington. The plot is completely predictable, but it has some entertaining moments and cameos.
But even more fun to read than the positive reviews (except for mine, of course) are some of the negative ones. That’s because a few detractors manage to look pretty foolish in the course of criticizing a movie they clearly consider buffoonish.
Take these two examples from RottenTomatoes.com: Dave Tianen of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel describes Keith and Carrington’s characters as “deputies in a small Texas town who bust the brother of a major Texas drug lord.” Apparently, I missed the meeting in which Oklahoma became the same as Texas and Texas became synonymous with Mexico. I guess maybe it’s just all the same to him.
Boxoffice Magazine’s Amy Nicholson goes one better in her summary: ”Keith plays Rack, a good-time redneck deputy from fictitious Mangum, Okla.” Has anyone informed the approximately 3,000 people living in the real-life Greer County town of Mangum that they no longer exist? And can someone please let Nicholson know about the existence of atlases?
“Beer for My Horses” continues to play this weekend at most of the theaters in Oklahoma City. And I feel pretty confident that the people of Mangum continue to lead their real, actual lives despite reports to the contrary.
-BAM
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