It's true that word of mouth can help. Not to discount that factor for "28 Days Later", but it did very well in North America straight away. It made $10 million on its first weekend in the U.S., so the marketing here was clearly successful. Things only built from there, through advertising and word of mouth. It is a fan and critical favorite, is considered a classic of its genre, and will always be included in related discussions in the press, etc., etc. It's an established success.

In contrast, "Sunshine" hasn't hit the $3 million mark in its first three weeks, and it's sinking. Wah. You never know -- it could still end up becoming a cult hit in some way. But just like success feeds itself, failure feeds itself. If it doesn't break even (which it hasn't yet), that failure will impact budget decisions on marketing the DVD, reviews/coverage of the DVD, sales to cable movie channels, and its perceived place in movie history. But we'll have to see what happens... it's still too early to say.

I am very worried about the fate of "Watching the Detectives."

Yes, and Fox Searchlight made the decision to move the North American release date up knowing full well that publicity opportunities in the press would be curtailed. My guess is that they probably had lowered expectations due to weak box office around the world this spring, and decided to minimize their losses by not spending too much on advertising and publicity. I did see a quote from an exec saying that they considered it a tricky film to market. Ultimately, rightly or wrongly, they made the business decision not to give "Sunshine" the support we would have liked to see it get. If they had wanted to give it a big push, they would have kept it on the calendar for the fall.

Sadly, the film doesn't seem to have turned things around via word-of-mouth... if it had done big business in its first few weeks here, you can bet the studio would have kicked in more advertising money to tell everyone about the hip surprise hit of the summer. But unfortunately, ticket sales have not been brisk enough for that. "Variety" now shows that it fell off 64% last weekend. Of course, it's a vicious cycle -- if it had had more advertising, maybe more people would have gone to see it. But still, if it had been a sleeper hit, they would have kicked in more ad money in to take advantage.

This is not the news we want to see, but... there it is. Cillian's latest, beautiful film, whose progress many of us have followed obsessively for two years, didn't end up doing well financially in its theatrical release.

Anonymous, you raise a very good point about spoilers here.

Folks, we can't assume that everyone has been able to see "Sunshine" yet, and should warn when we're about to give away major plot details.

Marina, I think you're right... weak marketing probably has a wider effect than mixed reviews.