Bella Movie Climbs Hollywood Charts as More Theaters Show Film

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 19, 2007   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Bella Movie Climbs Hollywood Charts as More Theaters Show Film Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 19,
2007

Hollywood, CA (LifeNews.com) — The movie that millions of Americans have fallen in love with continues to climb up the box office charts. Last weekend, Bella proved that all the family friendly, pro-life themed film needed to compete with top Hollywood hits was a longer list of venues showing the movie to a wider audience.

Bella is a touching story of a Mexican soccer star who seemingly has the kind of money and fame that buys true happiness. When an accident turns his world upside down, he learns a new appreciation for the value of human life and helps a co-worker do the same.

With a jump to 456 venues across the country, Bella again took in more than one million in sales and saw an increase of 18.9 percent in ticket revenue.

That jump allowed Bella to move up five places and come in at twelfth overall among all movies over the weekend. That showing could be enough for Roadside Attractions, the film’s distributor, to ship the movie to theaters nationwide.

The Thanksgiving weekend movie audience is typically one of the largest of the year and a wider nationwide release would assure the movie has a chance to impact millions more Americans on the issue of abortion.

Raimundo Rojas, the Hispanic Outreach Director for National Right to Life, told LifeNews.com the movie is "the preeminent pro-life film of our time."

Rojas attended the very first private screening of the movie two years ago in Mexico City and said, "From the start, I knew that this was something special."

"Those of us gathered there, who for so long had fought and continue to fight the battles in the war to end abortion, had just seen a movie that not only deeply resonated with us, but also made our best arguments for life without ever having used the word abortion," he said.

"Now the little movie that can is on the verge of actually doing it," Rojas added.

In total, Bella has earned $5,153,000 in ticket sales in four weeks at the box office and it has consistently been one of the leading films in per-theater sales.

Last weekend its ticket sales per venue were still high enough to put it in the top ten, ahead of movies like "Dan in Real Life," "Lions for Lambs," and "Saw IV."

Five of the movies ahead of it in the weekend rankings drew fewer ticket sales per theater and only brought in more sales than Bella because they appeared in anywhere from two to five times more venues.

Bella was one of only three films last weekend to increase its weekend ticket sales, and top movies such as "Bee Movie" and "American Gangster" saw ticket sales declined despite adding more theaters.