Boxoffice® Pro - December 2013

COMING
SOON
DigiNext expands its content to include a Latin,
faith-based holiday movie
A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
by Annlee Ellingson
n Launched last fall, DigiNext has distributed
a series of eight documentaries (and one indie
rom com) to targeted audiences. “We started
with the documentaries because they were
readily available to us,” says Bud Mayo, chairman
and CEO of Digital Cinema Destinations
Corporation, which partners on DigiNext with
Nehst Media Enterprises.
But on Dec. 6, DigiNext is expanding
its mandate to include A Miracle in Spanish
Harlem, a family drama with a Latino cast and
faith-based themes—two demographics the
company will market to both hyper-locally and
nationally.
Luis Antonio Ramos stars as a widower and
father of two girls who, despite holding down
two jobs, struggles to support his family and
has lost his faith. Mexican star Kate del Castillo,
in her first lead English-speaking cinematic
role, offers him a second chance at love.
“This is It’s a Wonderful Life but in a Latino
background starring major Latino actors,” says
Mayo, who wants to tap the same audience that
has driven the Spanish-language comedy-drama
Instructions Not Included to $44.2 million domestically.
“We’re under no illusions that we’re
going to do Instructions Not Included numbers
with it, but we certainly think that we know
who the audience is.”
In order to reach that audience, DigiNext
is marketing in bodegas like the one the main
character owns and to charities that cater to
Latinos, “sharing part of the ticket price for
anything they helped us with,” Mayo says. The
cast has made the rounds in New York, with
plans to appear on Univision and a promotion
deal in the works with Telemundo through
Screenvision.
“The outgrowth of this will be that we do
three or four more [Latino-oriented films] over
the course of the next year or two,” Mayo says.
“We see this as a movie that we will do at least
some kind of a limited release and try to do it
at around this time of year again possibly every
year,”
A Miracle in Spanish Harlem
will play Dec. 6-12 in about
150 theaters in the Digiplex
chain and Screenvision
network, and DigiNext plans
to re-release it wider in
January.
LUIS ANTONIO RAMOS
FATIMA PTACEK, KATE DEL CASTILLO, BRIANNA GONZALEZ-BONACCI
FATIMA PTACEK
10 BoxOffice ® Pro The Business of Movies DECEMBER 2013