Los Angeles, CA August 22, 2007-- After opening in New York and LA with the highest per-screen average of any film released on North American screens, Leonardo DiCaprio’s The 11th Hour is rolling out this weekend in Calgary, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., Waterloo, Winnipeg and other cities. “We’re very excited” said Producer Brian Gerber, “We had some incredible screenings and terrific reactions from young people.”
 
“For a documentary to open at $15,213 per screen is phenomenal,” said film critic Arthur Kanegis, who reviewed the film for Scene4 magazine.  “Compare that to Superbad, the box office leader, which took in $11,211 per screen, or even the amazingly successful Sicko which took in $10,200 per screen on it’s opening weekend.” “It beats hands down this summers blockbuster hit Transformers” Kanegis continued, “which opened with an average of $2,194 per screen.” Transformers was made with a budget of $150 million, and is the fourth top-grossing film of the year. It has averaged $2563 per screen during its run so far.   “People are voting with their dollars,” DiCaprio said at a press conference on the release of the film, “Every time you do buy something you’re advocating the way that company does business and by buying a hybrid car or buying something organic or green you’re essentially making them create more for a marketplace” “People certainly voted with their dollars opening weekend,” Kanegis said.  “DiCaprio told us at the press conference that he made the film on a shoestring and mostly shot it in his mother’s garage.  And yet now theater owners are seeing that every screen running 11th Hour is making six times more than screens running Transformers.”
“Both Transformers and 11th Hour are about life on Earth being threatened,” Kanegis added, “In Transformers the threat comes from fictional alien creatures. In The 11th Hour the creatures are us.  DiCaprio and his team of over 50 experts make it clear that our actions are threatening the very life systems which make our planet habitable.”  “The 11th Hour is the ultimate horror movie, action flick and feel-good movie all wrapped up into one,” Kanegis said in his review.
 
“Young people are flocking to the screenings,” Gerber said, “because they are concerned about their future.  They want to know the facts.  They want hope.  And they want to know what they personally can do to help humanity survive.  The 11th Hour gives them all three.”  

See Arthur Kanegis’ Insight Review of “The 11th Hour” http://www.11thhouraction.com/node/422

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