Actually, The Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD, the series of transmissions to movie theaters that began in December 2006, has hit the top-10 of weekend theatrical box office many times in such countries as Canada and the UK. In the U.S., however, although the series, said to be the number-one alternative (non-movie) content in cinemas worldwide, has hit number 11 on multiple occasions, it never before broke through to the top-10.
Last Saturday, that changed. According to figures in Variety and BoxOfficeMojo.com, the Metropolitan Opera’s Boris Godunov squeaked past Easy A, the 10th-place movie: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118026222.html, http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2010&wknd=43&p=.htm
It might be worth noting that those box-office figures represent three days of continuous showings for the movies and just a single showing for the opera, which, being live, began early in the morning in some U.S. movie theaters. It also lasted almost five hours and was sung entirely in Russian!
Coincidentally, cartoonist Alex Anderson, who first drew the characters Rocky & Bullwinkle, died the day before. The connection? Their nemesis, of course, Boris Badenov: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/arts/television/26anderson.html
