The AfterElton.com Ranking Round-Up: When will "Milk" go wide?

Welcome to the AfterElton.com Ranking Roundup, a regular feature where we round up the rankings from various sources as to what is, and isn't, hot in gay male entertainment!

Top Gay-Related Theatrical Releases

1. Milk ($2 million; $17.3 million after 6 wks; $6638 per screen)
2. High School Musical 3: Senior Year ( $243,418; $90 million after 11 weeks; $295 per screen)
3. Antarctica ($6,033; $16,312 total after 7 wks; $6,033 per screen)
4. Ciao ($3,138; $22,944 total after 5 wks; $1,046 per screen)
5. Were the World Mine ($1,632; $88,788 after 10 wks; $544 per screen)

Analysis and more rankings after the jump!

Why hasn't Milk gone wide yet? That seems to be what every gay person wants to know (with the unstated apprehension that the film isn't doing very well at the box office). But this has been Focus Features release strategy for the film all along: start small, let word-of-mouth grow as it expands to several hundred theaters, and then go wide in 1000 theaters or more at the end of January, taking full advantage of all the publicity when the Oscar nominations are announced (and Milk gets its expected Best Picture nod); the film is currently playing on 309 screens and, interestingly, has grossed only a little less than Brokeback Mountain had at this point in its release, which had almost exactly the same marketing plan. That said, Brokeback broke per-screen box office records when it finally went wide at the end of January, but insiders admit that there probably isn't the same level of enthusiasm for Milk. Time will tell if it will have Brokeback's staying power.

In others release news, Antarctica, a well-made (and sexually explicit), but very experimental film, is playing well on a single screen. Meanwhile, the gay teen musical Were the World Mine ends its theatrical run, never having broken out the way some expected it to.

Gay DVD Bestsellers

(at Wolfe Video)

1. He Likes Guys
2. Arizona Sky
3. Whirlwind
4. Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild
5. Schoolboy Crush
6. Shelter
7. Boys Briefs 5: Schoolboys
8. Dantes Cove Season 3
9. Dog Tags
10. The Lair: Season Two

Sales are strong for the pre-release of Whirlwind, a micro-budgeted, but surprisingly effective film about a group of gay friends and the mysterious, but handsome interloper who seems determined to screw up all their lives. Schoolboy Crush is a melodramatic Japanese import about angsty gay teens--basically anime come to life. If you're a teenage girl, you'll love it!