Eugenio Derbez and his wife Alessandra Rosaldo Photo: CFP

 Spanish-language film Instructions Not Included generated $10 million in ticket sales over the four-day Labor­ Day weekend, from Friday to Monday­, a record for a Spanish film in the US and a sign of the potential the Hispanic market represents for Hollywood.­

The film, which stars 52-year-old Mexican TV star Eugenio Derbez as an Acapulco playboy forced to raise a baby girl left on his doorstep, ranked fifth among films in US theaters, despite opening in scant 347 theaters, according to hollywood.com.

As a result, it generated average ticket sales of $28,818 per screen, more than four times the average of Lee Daniels' The Butler, the weekend's top film.

"No one saw this coming," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office­ division of hollywood.com. "A cute family-oriented concept with a terrific marketing campaign."

The movie is distributed by Pantelion,­ a joint venture of Hollywood studio Lions­gate Entertainment and Mexican media giant Televisa that intends to tap the Hispanic American moviegoing­ audience­ ­that last year bought 10.9 million­ tickets or 26 percent of all tickets sold, according to the industry group Motion­ Picture Association of America.

"Hispanics were the heaviest moviegoers­, as they represent 18 percent of the moviegoing population but accounted for 25 percent of all movies seen," said media research company Nielsen in a separate study. "Hispanics were also the only demographic group that went to more movies in 2012 than in the prior year."

To tap that market for Instructions Not Included, which has English subtitles, Pantelion put ads on Univision, Telemundo and other Spanish-language channels as well as social media sites like Fandango, Facebook and YouTube­ that are heavily used by the Hispanic­ population.

Pantelion also relied heavily on Derbez, who promoted the film to his 3.2 million Twitter followers and 1.5 million "likes" for his official Facebook page.

To kick off its campaign, the company peppered US Spanish-language network Univision with ads for its annual "Premios Juventud" awards show in July. Derbez received a lifetime achievement award on the show, which was seen by over 10 million­ viewers, Pantelion said.

"He's the biggest star you never heard of," said Pantelion Chief Executive Paul Presburger. "The strength of the film is that it's had great word of mouth. He's a big part of that."

The biggest-selling Spanish-language film in the US ever is Pan's Labyrinth­, an imaginative horror film directed by Spain's Guillermo del Toro, that opened in early 2007 with $4.5 million­ on its first weekend and totaled­ $83 million in worldwide sales, according­ to movie site Box Office Mojo.

Instructions Not Included, with its Mexican setting, may have resonated with the US Hispanic audience, which includes many Mexican immigrants, more than Pan's Labyrinth, which is set in Spain in 1944.

Pantelion, whose formation was announced in 2010, intends to produce eight to 10 films a year aimed at the Hispanic market in the US and Mexico, in an effort to duplicate the success Lionsgate has with the African American market through films it distributes for Tyler Perry.

Reuters