Birth of a Nation headed toward 8 to 9 million dollar opening weekend

George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com

The Nat Turner biopic, Birth of a Nation starring, produced, written and directed by Nate Parker opens this weekend and if websites that report on movies are correct the movie is headed for an $8-9 million dollar opening. No doubt that the recent controversy over allegations that Parker raped a female student in 1999 while he was at Penn State and the women's later suicide has and will hurt the movies opening weekend.

The movie is being released through Fox Searchlight which also released 12 Years a Slave which had a $6.6 million opening weekend back in 2013 on it's way to a $56 million dollar gross. Like 12 Years a Slave there is Oscar buzz around Birth of a Nation. Whether that helps the film is yet to be seen. Below are predictions from three websites that predict opening weekend numbers.

Variety.com project a $8 million dollar opening:

...Fox Searchlight will open the film wide, instead of building up slow with the hopes of capturing awards attention. It will kick off in 2,100 theaters and should make $8 million.

BoxOffice.com predicts a $9.5 million dollar opening.

BoxOfficeMojo.Com projects a lower 7.7 million dollar opening weekend.

If you do the math that's an average of $8.4 million.

I am a bit more optimistic about the movies opening weekend and feel that it can open in the $12-13 million dollar range because of the following reasons:

The film has some great reviews and currently holds an 78% rating on www.rottentomatoes.com

Good word of mouth could very well drive more moviegoers to the film on Saturday.

The opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture has inspired much pride among African Americans about them and their history, this could drive some to see the film about a black historical figure.

The movie has some buzz among the black college crowd. It could be like the movie Malcolm X which was released when I was in school; it was a movie that you were just supposed to go to see if you were black.(Let's just hope that put the right movie title on the tickets this time).

So will you be going to see Birth of a Nation this weekend and how much do you think it will make?

George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com

The Birth of a Nation (Nat Turner Movie): Official Trailer

Set against the antebellum South, THE BIRTH OF A NATION follows Nat Turner (Nate Parker), a literate slave and preacher, whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer), accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves. As he witnesses countless atrocities - against himself and his fellow slaves - Nat orchestrates an uprising in the hopes of leading his people to freedom. Birth of a Nation is directed, written, and co-produced by Nate Parker and has a release date of October 7, 2016

Nate Parker Creates Film and Drama School at HBCU

On Sunday (March 20), Parker announced the Nate Parker School of Film and Drama, which will launch this fall at Wiley College, an historically Black college or university (HBCU).

“If I can create a pipeline toward filmmaking physically through developing the college, having filmmakers be nurtured and cultivated here, and then having somewhere for them to go with respect for them actually being able to engage in filmmaking here in East Texas, then it kind of serves multiple purposes,” Parker told local station KLTV. “You control the moving picture, you control the masses. So really getting them rallied around the idea of reclaiming the narrative of America, specifically through the eyes of people of color.”

Though classes won’t officially start until this fall, the school will host a nine-day summer institute with about 30 high school and college students. Parker has also joined the college’s board of trustees, and local station KLTV reports that he even used the Marshall, Texas, institution’s a capella choir on the soundtrack for his Sundance recordbreaking film “The Birth of a Nation.”

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