Can Asian and Latino Unity Make ‘In The Heights’ Reach #1 At The Box Office?

Can Asian and Latino Unity Make ‘In The Heights’ Reach #1 At The Box Office? The upcoming film ‘In The Heights,’ which already accounts for a Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jon Chu collaboration, has A LOT riding on it. If a movie about Latinos fails, studios will view it as evidence that moviegoers aren’t interested in seeing Latino stories. This is a bigger problem for Hispanics than it already is. If it opens at #1, it could single-handedly open the floodgates to Latino stories being normalized on-screen.

What If In The Heights Opens At #1?

The seismic impact it could have on American culture could be reminiscent of the Latin explosion of 1999 and the early 2000s. It could also give way to the long-awaited reggaeton movie we’ve never gotten from a major movie studio.  This is why the recent news of Gold House (Asian and Pacific Islander nonprofit collective) and NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers) coming together to help secure box office success for Latino movies, especially for ‘In The Heights,’ is a multicultural flex that Hollywood won’t be able to ignore.

Gold House is known popularly for buying out theatres for several Asian independent films, including their most successful and effective case study to date – ‘Crazy Rich Asians’. They attach a viral social media strategy along with press campaigns to push those films to the Top 5 debuts.  The strategy they mention must have been inspired by the success of these African American and female filmmakers. For example, Tyler Perry’s Madea films.

NALIP is known in the media industry as the champion for Latinx creators. Led by Ben Lopez, its Executive Director for the last four years, NALIP provides a support system to upcoming Latinx talent.

Together, Gold House and NALIP hope to deliver a blow to WB to greenlight an ‘In The Heights’ sequel.  Hopefully, more Latino stories will screen by the dozens across all its platforms. At least that is the expectation. As many as 80 individuals and organizations have committed to supporting #LatinxGoldOpen, including Eva Longoria, Gemma Chan, director Carlos Lopez Estrada, Kelly Marie Tran, and The Blackhouse Foundation.

Asian-Latino Unity Throughout History

But this support amongst Asians and Latinos isn’t new per se. Both groups have been associating since 1903 when the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA) was formed as the first multiracial labor union in the country.

Japanese-Mexican Labor Association, 1903

Organizers and community leaders Larry Itliong and Cesar Chavez hooked up back in 1965 for the Delano Grape Strike to improve the lives of Filipino and Mexican farmworkers.

(l. to r.) Larry Itliong and Cesar Chavez

Mexican-American rapper Becky G and Korean superstar J-Hope recently fused their cultures and languages in the fluid pop hit, ‘Chicken Noodle Soup,’ which at the time of this article, has been viewed over 255 million times.

Becky G and J-Hope from BTS

And of course, the Japanese have been showing Chicanos love for an LA minute.

How Are Asians and Latinos Helping To Make ‘In The Heights’ A Success?

The love is no doubt there, but can it deliver real gold at the box office? For heads to spin at WarnerMedia-Discovery+, ‘In The Heights’ ideally would have to land at #1 with an estimated $25 – 45 million at the box office and be trending on Twitter for days.

NALIP and Gold House believe they can activate the power of their communities. They will do it by unleashing people from the Hispanic and Asian American communities to the movies on June 11th.  They want to emulate or approximate the transcendental success of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’. That film had a 2018 opening weekend of $26M in 3,384 theaters and generated $174M domestically and $238M worldwide. Realistically, ‘In The Heights’ will have trouble getting close to those numbers. Much of it because of environmental and social dynamics.

Let Us Explain Why In The Heights Will Not Be Number One

First Reason

First, the maximum wide-release movie all 2021 is Angelina Jolie’s ‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’. Today in New York City, the law requires movie theaters like AMC and Regal to open up at 33% capacity. For example, if a room can fit 250 seats, it would’ve to reduce attendance to just 82 seats per movie. Los Angeles is at 50% and Texas is at 60% capacity. According to employees at AMC, no AMC movie theater in the country is currently open to 100% capacity yet. How can a film break records with only 80 people per auditorium?

Second Reason

Secondly, ‘In The Heights’ will also be simultaneously streamed on HBO Max, which presents a problem for producers who know Latino families over-index on streaming. Were you aware that 78% of Hispanic households have at least one streaming subscription, compared with 74% of the total U.S. population? Heck, more Latinos subscribe to Netflix than white folks. Some Hispanic families might already be getting HBOMax for free through their AT&T cell plan or paying $14.99 directly a month.

It remains unclear how many Latinx families will stay at home to watch the film in theaters vs. streaming, but according to Deadline, 3.6 million households watched ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ in its streaming premiere, the highest the platform has received so far, and though comparing these two is like comparing apples to oranges, it does give us a clear ceiling of the highest viewership an HBOMax film can achieve.  The effects of a pandemic and the theatrical release window collapsing have created a new world. This caveat does limit the comparison to really Crazy Rich Asians, which hampers anything like an apples-to-apples comparison.

Third Reason

Thirdly, we know Latinos love white Hollywood movies more than any other diverse demographic in the country, but there’s a disturbing myth being passed amongst some Hollywood studio executives that Latinos don’t watch Latino films. That can’t be farther from the truth. Paramount’s ‘Dora the Explorer’ movie adaptation had a remarkable 46% of Hispanics turn out at the box office for it. New Line Cinema’s ‘Curse of La Llorona’ saw a head-shaking 49% of Latinos show up to see the horror film. These statistics confirm that Latinos show up for Latino films, but will other groups show up to see them too? For Dora, the support was meager from Blacks and Asians. Only 11% of African-Americans and 10% of Asians saw the film, while a film like Pixar’s ‘Coco’ drew 43% support from Caucasians versus a head-scratching 36% from Latinos.

Main Takeaways

The takeaway here is this. If ‘In The Heights; wants to win at the box office, it will have to focus on Caucasians and Blacks. Latinos will already be 50% of the moviegoers by default. It’s going to take everyone to come out during this pandemic to make this film #1 at the box office. What is certain is if we all come together to do this, it could mark the end of Latino invisibility in Hollywood, and we’ll have the new majority of moviegoers to thank for that.

If you found our analysis of ‘Can Asian and Latino Unity Make ‘In The Heights’ Reach #1 At The Box Office’ and its potential to reach #1 at the box office intriguing, particularly regarding the role of Asian and Latino unity, you’ll be interested in our latest post – it dives deeper into the impact of Latino viewership on streaming platforms like Netflix.