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Edwin Davies: I think Brett has the truth of it with his comparison to films that are geared towards African American and churchgoing audiences. Theoretically, Hollywood films are designed to have the widest possible audience, but over time the focus has narrowed to teenage boys to the detriment of many other groups. But those groups are still out there and still go to the movies, it's just that those movies aren't designed to speak to them. The niche-targeting approach we've seen in recent years has demonstrated time and again that all it needs is for someone to actually make a film for these audiences and it will do pretty well because those audiences are so starved for stuff that actually seems to be about their lives. Instructions Not Included meets a demand that most studios don't seem to realize is even there, and the last two weeks have demonstrated how powerful that demand can be. It helps that we're in the doldrums and the market place is getting thinned out, but even at the height of summer the film's per screen average would have turned a lot of heads.

Kim Hollis: I think it only makes sense to focus more on niche demographics. Cable TV, radio and other media outlets have been doing it for quite some time. It's very possible to make a great movie on a limited budget and make money by doing some targeted marketing, both grass roots and traditional. While I always think there will be certain types of films that will appeal to the masses, it's time to realize that young white guys aren't the only people who like to go to movies.

David Mumpower: The points made about the changing demographics of movie consumption are well considered. Similar matters of practicality are why the WWF/WWE was forced to change their appalling track record of stereotypical Latino wrestlers. They realized that a much larger percentage of wrestling fans were Latino, so they were unintentionally (giving them the benefit of the doubt) spitting in the face of some of their most ardent fans. Over the past few years, caricatures have been dialed way down for that reason.

I think it behooves us to mention that this is not the only success story along these lines this summer. Eros Entertainment managed a ninth place finish in late May with Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani while Raanjhanaa earned 19th place a few weeks later. Those are the smaller scale versions of what Pantelion has accomplished with Instructions Not Included. We have a lot of under-served movie demographics in North America right now. Consumers are trying to speak with their movie ticket purchases if only Hollywood would listen. It's a smaller scale version of what transpired with The Passion of the Christ. A lot of people who otherwise ignore theaters because most movies are unappealing to them were enticed to attend. As Hollywood becomes more Big Data-based, similar steps will be taken. Pantelion's performance over the past two weeks will become part of the modeling used in future calculations.

Reagen Sulewski: I like to imagine a world in which David knew the names *and* correct spelling of those two Bollywood films by heart.

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