Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, the indy movie that opened November 6, last week took in $6.1 million in "sold-out theaters in limited release," according to the New York Times. The film goes into wide release this coming Friday and should continue to benefit from publicity by Oprah and Tyler Perry. The book was originally published in 1996; the movie tie-in version is from Vintage ($13, 9780307474841/0307474844). Incidentally the Vintage/Anchor website features video clips with Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe (who plays Precious), an interview with Sapphire and more.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a long story about Gary Magness and Sarah Siegel-Magness, the wealthy Denver couple with no film producing experience who spent some $12 million bankrolling the movie "about an obese black teen growing up in an abusive Harlem household."

Magness is a cattle rancher and investor whose parents founded Tele-Communications, a cable company that merged with AT&T. Siegel-Magness has a clothing company called So Low; her parents founded Celestial Seasonings.

Siegel-Magness remembered the accepted wisdom from Hollywood about their decision to back Precious. "They told us we should have instead invested in this or that fund to make 11 different movies, that we were crazy for financing an African-American movie about incest."