After scoring number one openings with “No Filter,” and “Do it Like an Hombre” in Chile and Mexico, Nicolás López has topped Chilean charts again with “I’m Not Crazy.” Its stellar admissions numbers come as López is proving to be one of the biggest remake phenomenons in Latin America, with reversions of “No Filter” opening in Mexico, shooting in Spain and building to production in Argentina – with the later set to feature star Natalia Oreiro.
López told Variety that a Mexican remake of “I’m Not Crazy,” is already in the works, with leading indie production-distribution house Corazón Films producing. Netflix will handle U.S. distribution for the original Chilean version, a deal which furthers an already strong relationship between López and the streaming giant, Netflix having released and co-financed “Sin Filtro.”
“I’m Not Crazy,” opened Jan. 4 in Chile, and launched to the top spot in the weekend’s domestic box office with little resistance. By Wednesday, however, it will pass $1 million, a significant achievement for any Chilean film, and especially meaningful because “I’m Not Crazy” had a budget of only $800,000, López told Variety.
This is Lopez’s third consecutive film to open at No. 1 at the Chilean box office, selling more than 130,000 admissions. The numbers are right on par with Lopez’s early 2016 hit “No Filter,” and outpaced international blockbusters like “Wonder Woman,” (120,000 tickets sold) “Justice League” (87,000) and “Coco”(107,000) in their debut weekends in Chile.
While opening-weekend dollar totals might not add up to the disproportionate sums of films which charge orders of magnitude more for IMAX or 3D tickets, “I’m Not Crazy” has thus far has closely emulated returns from last year’s “Do it Like an Hombre,” which finished with an global box office return of $15 million, López said.
“I’m Not Crazy” is the second in a female-focused trilogy which started with “No Filter,” and the first in which the lead could only have been a woman. “I’m Not Crazy” tells the story of Carolina, played by Chilean comedian Paz Bascuñán, star of “No Filter,” whose life is seemingly perfect, until she learns she can not have children… on the day her husband, who had told her he didn’t want children either, leaves her for her best friend, who is pregnant with his baby. After this triple whammy, Carolina attempts a suicide and is admitted to a psychiatric clinic where she meets with a group of “crazy women” who help her recover, and discover her new path in life.
The director deserves much of the credit for his film’s successes, as he also handles his own marketing. For “I’m Not Crazy,” López didn’t use any footage from the film in trailers or advertisements. Instead, he showed actresses from the film asking people on the street to explain how they are crazy, or to defend their sanity, turning his film’s theme into an engagement-creating social issue. López also maintains an extremely active social media presence with nearly 90,000 Twitter followers, and just short of 44,000 on Instagram.
Oreiro will shoot “Reloca,” the Argentine remake of “No filter,” from next month. Santiago Segura, Spain’s top comic talent, will bow “Sin rodeos,” its Spanish retread, on Feb. 23.
John Hopewell contributed to this article
