Despite the fairly positive reviews, the film is squishy heart got off to a slow start at the box office last weekend.
The film, directed by Mariloup Wolfe, which was broadcast on 60 screens across the province last Friday, had to settle for sixth place at the box office in Quebec, according to the figures, taking $130,828 for the first three days of cinemas Quebec content compiled by the Cinéac agency.
“I’m very disappointed with the numbers,” Heart of Slush producer Christian Larouche (Confessions, Louis Cyr) told the Journal.
One would have expected that the rainy weekend weather would help boost attendance at theaters across the province. However, this is by no means the case.
“It wasn’t a good weekend for the cinemas,” laments Christian Larouche. Sunday was a terrible day. Is it because people celebrated Father’s Day? I don’t know. Even great American films did worse than normal.”
Unsurprisingly, it was the superhero film Flash, the big news of the week, that topped the province’s box office with $536,057. For comparison, the animated film “Spider-Man: Through the Spider-Verse” raised nearly $1 million in its first weekend in Quebec. The new Disney/Pixar production, Elementary, which opened last Friday, also had mixed results in theaters across the province in its first three days at the box office, grossing $463,376.
The challenge of reaching young people
Producer Christian Larouche and director Mariloup Wolfe took on the challenge of attracting young audiences to the cinemas by bringing the young adult novel “Cœur de slush” to the screen. Time will tell if they will be successful, but the film’s early box office results are not encouraging.
“It proves to us once again that we are dealing with an audience (young people) that is difficult to reach,” analyzes Christian Larouche. Still, I know people love the film and word of mouth is good. We know several young people are going on holiday in a few days so we’re keeping our fingers crossed for the rest. But for now I’m still disappointed.
Despite this patchy start to his theatrical career, “Cœur de slush” still had the fourth-best start for one after La cordonnière ($186,435 the first weekend last March), Katak, the brave Beluga ($182,829 in February) and The Quebec film in 2023 Diver ($181,698 also in February).
Cœur de slush tells the story of Billie (Liliane Skelly), a 16-year-old teenager who falls in love with a young wonder cyclist (Joseph Delorey) who also caught the eye of her big sister (Camille Felton).
Sarah-Maude Beauchesne’s novel, published in 2014, was a huge hit with teenagers, selling more than 40,000 copies.