Word of Mouth: ‘The King’s Speech’ lands big in smaller markets

There are multiplexes in the United States where James Bond is still considered too much of a foreigner. Moviegoers in smaller cities often shun art-house fare. And African American ticket buyers are not usually the first to queue up for period dramas.

The movie exhibition business is filled with this kind of conventional wisdom, but “The King’s Speech” is proving it wrong at almost every opportunity.

This year’s Oscar race has been distinguished by the unexpectedly strong box-office returns generated by some of the winter’s leading Academy Award contenders: In domestic release, “True Grit” has grossed more than $161 million, “Black Swan” has crossed the $100-million mark, “The Social Network” has sold more than $96 million in tickets, and “The Fighter” stands at $86 million.

Yet the sustained performance of “The King’s Speech” — driven largely by lucrative returns from American markets that don’t typically embrace such a film — is perhaps the award season’s most extraordinary box-office tale. The drama about stuttering King George VI’s relationship with a speech therapist will cross the $100-million mark this weekend (it passed $200 million worldwide on Wednesday), and may not slow down after hitting those benchmarks.

If “The King’s Speech” wins the best picture Oscar on Feb. 27, as many expect, it ultimately could outperform the independent film blockbusters “Slumdog Millionaire” ($141.3 million) and “Juno” ($143.5 million) in North America.

While the film has done very well in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago, “The King’s Speech” is performing far above expectations in such cities as Tavernier, Fla., St. Charles, Ill., and Rocky Mount, N.C. Buoyed by a growing number of pre-Oscar awards and strong word of mouth, the film’s box-office take declined just 6.2% last weekend, its 12th in theaters, from the prior weekend. (“The Fighter,” by comparison, slipped 24% last weekend, and “Black Swan” fell 37%. Both films have been out nearly as long as “The King’s Speech.”)

“It’s really had remarkable traction in all of our theaters,” said Chris Johnson, the vice president of Classic Cinemas, which operates 99 screens in smaller Illinois cities. “The performance has been fabulous. I cannot think of another film where everyone — everyone — has enjoyed the film as much.”

Johnson and other Middle America exhibitors and film buyers say it’s not simply that the movie is playing surprisingly soundly, but that it isn’t fading. Johnson said that at his Charlestowne 18 in St. Charles last weekend, “The King’s Speech” grossed $3,450 in its eighth weekend there — which would have been a good take for an opening weekend.

In Fort Myers, Fla., revenue for “The King’s Speech” last weekend surged 32% from a week earlier, even though it was in the same number of theaters — 12 — and was in the eighth week of its run there. Grosses also were up even more in Tulsa, Okla.; Toledo and Dayton, Ohio; Albany, N.Y.; and Springfield, Mass.

“The King’s Speech” is not generating big ticket sales in some of the nation’s tertiary towns, and the film’s R rating (given by the Motion Picture Assn. of America for “some language”) probably trimmed the film’s overall gross by 20% or more, distributor the Weinstein Co. believes.

“In smaller markets, it has not set the world on fire,” said Brad Bills, whose Independent Film Services books films for about 450 independent theaters in states including Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. But whenever the film plays in slightly larger municipalities — particularly those that might have a college or university — the proceeds spike, he said.

Bills said “The King’s Speech” shows no signs of slowing down in places like Wildwood, Mo., and Tavernier, Fla. Because many of the film’s patrons are older people who don’t see that many movies, theater owners are seeing ticket buyers who hardly ever visit the cinema, he said. What’s more, they are patronizing a movie that to some Midwesterners feels like a foreign-language film, even though it’s in English.

“We’ve always had difficulty in smaller Midwest communities getting people to come see a British movie,” Bills said. “But I am suggesting to all of my clients who aren’t yet playing it that they should play ‘The King’s Speech.’ When you think about it, it’s a movie that everybody should see — it’s a feel-good story like ‘The Blind Side.’”

Dwight Gunderson, the film buyer for Cinema Entertainment and United Entertainment, which operates 240 screens in the Midwest and the South, says “The King’s Speech” performance is even more notable than that of “Juno,” which was at least an American story. “I’m even more surprised by this movie — I mean, it’s about British history,” he said.

He said one of the most unanticipated audiences for the film has been African Americans. He said the film was doing strong business at the Premiere Theatre 14 in Rocky Mount, where 56% of the local population is black, according to U.S. Census data.

The movie also has done well at the Premiere Theatre 12 in Goldsboro, where blacks make up 52% of the population. Those North Carolina complexes “don’t play a lot of specialized movies,” Gunderson said.

Iain Canning, one of the producers of the film, said he believes that audiences have been moved by “The King’s Speech’s” story of transformation and friendship. “People leaving the cinema are feeling that that day, that evening, the next day, they can go out and be a better version of themselves,” Canning said. “And they are going back to the movie with their friends and their parents” to relive that experience.

The Weinstein Co. will likely expand the film’s run to about 3,000 locations next weekend to coincide with the Academy Awards, up from about 2,200 this weekend. “We think the picture transcends demographics,” said David Glasser, the company’s chief operating officer. So far, the numbers prove him right.

john.horn@latimes.com