A popular anime empire and a beloved manga both hit screens in North America this weekend, with The Outrun starring Saoirse Ronan, five actors playing surrealist artist Salvador Dali, and a trio of thought provoking docs new on the specialty circuit this weekend.
Also noting Columbia Pictures’ Saturday Night from Jason Reitman, which rocked its opening last week, expands in NY and LA and adds ten new markets for 21 locations total before going wide Oct. 11. The film, based on the true story of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live in 1975, debuted to $270k at five theaters in NY/LA for a terrific $54k per theater average.
Moderate releases: Sony Pictures Classics’ Saoirse Ronan-starring and Nora Fingscheidt-directed drama The Outrun hits 508 screens. After a decade away in London, 29-year-old Rona (Ronan) returns home to the Orkney Islands. Sober but lonely, she tries to suppress her memory of the events which set her on this journey of recovery. Slowly the mystical land enters her inner world and – one day at a time – Rona finds hope and strength in herself among the heavy gales and the bracingly cold sea. Based on the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot, who co-wrote the screenplay with Fingscheidt.
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Premiered at Sundance, opened Edinburgh, and also stars Paapa Essiedu, Stephen Dillane and Saskia Reeves.
Viva Pictures is out on 306 screens with animated feature Scarygirl based on the widely celebrated graphic novel, toys, and game brand. The coming-of-age adventure, a co-production between Highly Spirited and Like A Photon Creative, is executive produced by John Stevenson, director of Kung Fu Panda. Ricard Cussó (Combat Wombat films) and Tania Vincent (Combat Wombat: Back 2 Back) direct the tale of Arkie, a young, tech-savvy girl whose idyllic world is threatened by a loss of sunlight. As she journeies to a spooky and fantastical city to discover the root of her planet’s destruction, things are not what they seem and even greater dangers emerge.
The film from Australia was released in a handful of territories last fall grossing $1.9+ million.
GKids opens family anime Look Back (a surprise box office hit in Japan this summer that grossed over 1 billion yen) in NYC (Regal Union Square) and LA (AMC Burbank 16). Based on the best-selling manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto (Chainsaw Man) and written-directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama, who will be appearing for Q&As at the AMC Burbank on Friday and Saturday.
The film will expand nationally to over 500 locations in the U.S. and Canada on Sunday and Monday, extending its run in various markets thereafter. It’s 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics (12 reviews) and moviegoers (under 50 reviews).
Look Back follows the popular, outgoing Fujino, celebrated by her classmates for her funny comics in the class newspaper. Her teacher asks her to share the space with Kyomoto, a truant recluse whose beautiful artwork sparks a competitive fervor in Fujino. Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s feature-length directorial debut speaks to the highs and lows of pursuing artistic excellence, and bonds formed through creative collaboration.
It’s seen $9.87 million in international grosses, mostly Asia Pacific, this year.
Music Box Films delves into the man and the artistic mystery that is Salvador Dalí in Daaaaaali!, director Quentin Dupieux’s comedic and unpredictable tribute to the iconic Surrealist. It premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, followed by engagements at BFI London and Rotterdam.
Dupieux pays homage to Dalí’s artistic genius, his idiosyncrasies, and his supreme ego in an offbeat, absurdist riff that sees a French journalist (Anaïs Demoustier) repeatedly meeting the artist to begin an interview for a documentary film project that never starts shooting. The artist is played by five different actors — Edouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Gilles Lellouche, Pio Marmaï and Didier Flamand.
Daaaaaalí! – with six a’s — is Dupieux’s latest release following Smoking Causes Coughing and Yannick. It opens at the Quad in NYC, the Nuart in LA and and several other markets. Expanding next week.
Frankie Freako from Shout! Studios is having a limited 25 theater opening for the horror comedy with director Steven Kostanski (Psycho Goreman) doing Q&As to sold-out shows this Friday and Saturday evening at the Alamo Drafthouse Lower Manhattan.
After calling a late-night party hotline that promises out-of-this-world fun, uptight yuppie Conor Sweeney must battle the pint-sized forces of evil unleashed through his phone line, led by the maniacal rock n’ roll goblin Frankie Freako. Stars Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney.
IFC Films’ RLJ Entertainment opens Spider One’s horror Little Bites at 18 theaters in limited release. In a desperate attempt to protect her ten-year-old daughter, a young widow allows a nightmarish monster to slowly eat her alive. Stars Krsy Fox, Jon Sklaroff, Elizabeth Phoenix Caro. Spider One (Michael David Cummings), the singer, record producer, director and younger brother Rob Zombie, wrote and directed.
IFC/Shudder also have Azreal on 139 screens in week 2.
Kani Releasing is opening Daisuke Miyazaki’s music-centric Plastic at the Metrograph in NYC with the director (End Of Night, Yamato (California), Tourism, Videophobia, upcoming #MITO) and composer/musician Kensuke Ide in attendance for opening weekend. Expands to Los Angeles’ Lumiere Cinema Oct. 11
Inspired by Kensuke Ide’s 2021 concept album Strolling Planet ’74 – for which Kensuke Ide’s band transformed into the fictitious 70s glam rock group Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists – Plastic tells the story of teenagers Jun and Ibuki (Takuma Fujie and An Ogawa) as they search for the legendary rock band 40 years after their farewell concert
Screened at NYC’s Japan Cuts, SXSW Sydney and the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival.
Kani Releasing was founded in 2021 as a boutique home video label and distributor specializing in Asian cinema, supporting up-and-coming filmmakers and reintroducing repertory classics from acclaimed directors to North American audiences.
Documentaries: The Film Forum in NYC presents the U.S. theatrical premiere of Oksana Karpovych’s dramatic doc Intercepted. The film by the Kyiv-born Canadian filmmaker premiered at Berlin and has done the festival circuit with its layered images of a desolate, war-ravaged Ukraine. She juxtaposes intercepted phone calls from Russian soldiers to their families – released by Ukraine’s secret service after the 2022 invasion — with eerie images of deserted, war-torn Ukrainian homes and villages, shot just behind the front lines.
New Wave by Elizabeth Ai screens at DCTV Firehouse in New York. Will add select cities nationally throughout the fall, including the Laemmle Glendale in LA Oct. 25.
The award-winning filmmaker delves into the 1980s Vietnamese American musical phenomenon that become know by as the New Wave scene, exploring themes of generational trauma and cultural identity. In Orange County, California, this counterculture moment takes the youth by storm, becoming a sanctuary for rebellious teens. But the fun Euro-synth dance beats and punk/goth aesthetics mask deep traumas—broken dreams and unfulfilled expectations that have shaped her community.
Premiered at Tribeca winning the fest’s Special Jury Award for Best New Documentary.
Leap of Faith from Picturehouse, directed and produced byNicholas Ma (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Mabel) and partner Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, 20 Feet from Stardom, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain) opens on 7 screens today in Grand Rapids (3), St Louis, Nashville, Washington D.C., and Phoenix. Debuts in NYC at the Angelika on 10/11 with further expansion on 10/18 and 10/25.
In 2016, 1 in 6 people stopped talking to a family member. It’s even worse now. Over the course of a year, 12 diverse Christian leaders struggle to find hope and fellowship at a series of boundary-breaking retreats in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Brought together by Michael Gulker of The Colossian Forum, the five women and seven men explore some of today’s most contentious issues and explores whether we can disagree and still belong to each other in a divided world.
Rounding out: Quiver presents The Problem With People, in limited release and on demand, co-written by Golden Globe Winner and multi-Emmy nominated actor Paul Reiser (Mad About You, Stranger Things) who also stars in the film alongside Jane Levy (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist) and Colm Meaney (Gangs of London).
Directed by BAFTA Award-winner Chris Cottam, the film follows two distant cousins who’ve never met – one in NYC, the other in Ireland’s smallest town – who come together to end to a generations-long family feud. It doesn’t go well.
Magnolia opens Things Will Be Different in limited release on 25 screens and VOD. This is the latest mind-bender from EPs Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Resolution, Spring, The Endless, Marvel’s Loki: Season Two, Daredevil: Born Again), directed by Michael Felker.
After evading police following a robbery, two estranged siblings lay low at an abandoned farmhouse, Stars Adam David Thompson, Riley Dandy, Justin Benson and Sarah Bolger.