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    ‘A Man Called Otto’ Surpasses Expectations at the Box Office

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    Ticket sales totaled $15 million over the holiday weekend, fueled by older audiences in the middle of the country.A nearly extinct species of theatrical movie — a conventional drama aimed at older ticket buyers in the middle of the country — sent a reminder to Hollywood over the weekend: If you build it (properly), they will come.“A Man Called Otto,” starring Tom Hanks as a cranky widower, will collect roughly $15 million over the four-day holiday weekend in the United States, for a total of $21 million since opening in limited release on Dec. 20, according to Comscore. That kind of sturdy debut has recently escaped pedigreed dramas like “Babylon,” “She Said,” “Amsterdam,” “Till” and “The Fabelmans,” leading to worries about the viability of dramas in theaters.For the most part, these films have been aimed at audiences on the coasts. “A Man Called Otto,” however, was marketed toward heartland audiences. Crowds came out in places like Detroit, Minneapolis, Denver and Salt Lake City, box office analysts said. None of the top 75 theaters for the film were located in Los Angeles or New York, which is very unusual.Ticket sales were “particularly vibrant in small-town theaters,” according to Sony Pictures Entertainment, which released the PG-13 film. About 60 percent of ticket buyers were female, and 46 percent of attendees were over the age of 55, Sony said. “A Man Called Otto” received warm reviews (68 percent positive, according to Rotten Tomatoes), with the obviousness of the plot the primary complaint. But ticket buyers loved it, as evidenced by a 96 percent positive audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.“The audience for original adult films will absolutely return to theaters, if we don’t forget them,” Tom Rothman, the chairman of the Sony Motion Picture Group, said in an email. “And if you are able to strike a chord in Middle America, it can be especially strong.” “A Man Called Otto” took in 50 percent more than the $10 million that analysts predicted going into the weekend.“A Man Called Otto” cost about $50 million to make (not including marketing expenses), with financing shared by TSG Entertainment and SF Studios, a Swedish film and television company. A remake of a Swedish film and based on a best-selling novel called “A Man Called Ove,” it is the heartstring-tugging story of a depressed widower who finds himself in an unusual friendship with a new neighbor. Hanks co-stars with Mariana Treviño and a cat named Smeagol. The movie was directed by Marc Forster, who is known for “Finding Neverland” and “Quantum of Solace.”The top movies at the North American box office over the weekend were wide-release holdovers. In first place, “Avatar: The Way of Water” (Disney) collected about $38.5 million between Friday and Monday, for a five-week total of $563 million ($1.9 billion worldwide). “M3gan,” a horror comedy from Universal, ranked second, with estimated ticket sales of $21.2 million, for a two-week total of $60 million ($91 million worldwide). More

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      ‘A Man Called Otto’ Review: Tom Hanks Learns Life Lessons

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      Going against nice-guy type (at first), the star plays a misanthrope who’s pulled into caring for a neighboring family in need.In 2016, reviewing the film “A Man Called Ove” for this newspaper, I mused: “Sweden’s official entry for a best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards proves that Swedish pictures can be just as sentimental and conventionally heartwarming as Hollywood ones.”That movie, based on a best-selling Swedish novel, is about a thoroughgoing grump who becomes suicidal after the death of his wife, until interactions with new neighbors soften his heart. One supposes an American remake was inevitable, and here it is, directed by Marc Forster and starring Tom Hanks, with the main character renamed Otto.Usually U.S. remakes of foreign films tend to homogenize the source material. But “A Man Called Otto” is not only more bloated than the Swedish film, it’s more outré, in a way that’s hard to pin down.Forster handles the flashback of the back story (in which the star’s son, Truman Hanks, plays a younger Otto) in gauzy-arty fashion. When the older Otto — Hanks reaches back to his excellent work in “Catch Me If You Can” to nail down the man’s overarching irritability — contemplates his happy marriage, his mind always goes back to its earliest times. It’s curious, until the film reveals why it has avoided more recent memories, but by then the omission feels like a withholding cheat.Otherwise, obviousness rules the day here. When Otto visits an incapacitated former friend, the soundtrack spins Kenny Dorham’s version of the jazz chestnut “Old Folks.” Which is always nice to hear, admittedly. Later, a teenager initially upbraided by Otto tells him that Otto’s wife, who had been a schoolteacher, “was the only person who didn’t treat me like a freak, because I’m transgender.” As the television icon Marcia Brady once put it, “Oh my nose!”A Man Called OttoRated PG-13 for themes and language. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. In theaters. More