Synopsis
In the beautiful hills of Cooper Canyon in Chihuahua, Mexico, a young boy (Emilio) is adopted by the mailman (Teo). As part of their daily tasks, they not only deliver the mail but read letters to the villagers, as well as take dictation, since most are illiterate. Young Emilio quickly learns to read and write but feels saddened by the mostly difficult stories sent by relatives that moved north to Denver, Colorado in pursuit of a better future. One day Teo becomes disabled and Emilio takes over the mail route and with great imagination he changes the letters to happy and optimistic stories. Within days, the village is transformed. The elders, once hopeless, lonely and sad, are now happy and enthusiastic, enjoying the "supposed" success their loved ones write of in the United States. But the enjoyment is short lived, as they realize that all the wonderful stories are the same, a product of Emilio’s imagination. During this same period, Emilio meets a young girl named Elena and they have an innocent friendship that becomes their first love.
Metrics
Movie Details
| Mexico Releases: |
March 9th, 2012 (Wide) |
| MPAA Rating: |
PG for thematic elements, violence, language and smoking.
(Rating bulletin 2224, 5/23/2012) |
| Running Time: |
104 minutes |
| Keywords: |
Immigration, Coming of Age, Adopted Family, Life in a Small Town, Orphan, Hispanic |
| Source: | Original Screenplay |
| Genre: | Drama |
| Production Method: | Live Action |
| Creative Type: | Contemporary Fiction |
| Production/Financing Companies: |
Cartas a Elena, LLC |
| Production Countries: |
Mexico |
| Languages: |
Spanish |
June 12th, 2012
For the third weekend in a row, Moonrise Kingdom remained the top film on the per theater chart with an average of $16,247. Again, most limited releases would kill to have an opening week per theater average that high while playing in only a couple theaters. Moonrise Kingdom did it in its third weekend of release while playing in nearly 100 theaters. To call it a success is an understatement. Prometheus finished in second place with $15,032, while the overall box office leader, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, was right behind with an average of $14,166. Dark Horse opened with $13,551 in its lone theater. Safety Not Guaranteed opened in ninety theaters, which is a little high for a limited release, but it still earned an impressive average of $10,862.
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June 8th, 2012
There are quite a few limited releases on this week's list, including quite a few that earned some pre-release buzz: Bel Ami, Dark Horse, Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding, Lola Versus, and Safety Not Guarenteed. Unfortunately, only the last one is earning overwhelmingly positive reviews. Hopefully it will perform well enough that it can escape the art house circuit and earn some measure of mainstream success.
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Because some of our sources provide box office data in their local currency, while we use USD in the graph above and table below, exchange rate fluctuations can have effect on the data causing stronger increases or even decreases of the cumulative box office.
Weekend Box Office Performance
| Date | Rank | Gross | % Change | Screens | Per Screen | Total Gross | Week |
|---|
| 2012/04/27 |
20 |
$2,976 |
|
9 |
$331 |
$106,238 |
8 |
Full financial estimates for this film, including domestic and international box office, video sales, video rentals, TV and ancillary revenue
are available through our research services. For more information, please contact us at research@the-numbers.com.
For a description of the different acting role types we use to categorize acting perfomances, see our Glossary.
Production and Technical Credits
