From Monday’s Boston Globe :
Could Ben Affleck’s beloved Red Sox be taking a bite out of the box office take for his directorial debut, “Gone Baby Gone,” which pulled in a lackluster $3.9 million in its second weekend in theaters? The film – starring Casey Affleck and Amy Ryan – cost an estimated $19 million to make and box office numbers available yesterday show it’s brought in $11.3 million since opening on Oct. 19. One official from Miramax, which made the Boston-set “Gone,” told the Globe that because the film’s opening coincided with the Sox’s playoff run, that may have contributed to its low box office receipts. “Boston fans are not going to choose going to a Boston movie over watching their team,” the official said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the film. “There’s a real belief that people will catch up with it once the Sox are done playing.”
Makes sense to me, much the same way Scott Caan’s “The Dog Problem” failed to catch the imagination of movie-goers otherwise preoccupied with the Final Four, local elections, unusually nice weather and the growing popularity of the Nintendo Wii.