Indies

Following its Venice Film Festival bow and seven César Awards including for Best Film, Lost Illusions was the top weekend title at two core NYC arthouses — taking $10,850 of its estimated $13,579 three-day gross from Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center. The period piece based on the Honoré de Balzac novel about greed
0 Comments
Chloe Okuno’s feature debut Watcher recorded the biggest opening weekend grosses ever for IFC Films and its IFC Midnight/Shudder label on 764 U.S. screens — also one of the distributor’s widest ever releases. The genre thriller that world premiered at Sundance then SXSW reported an estimated weekend gross of $815,000 and a PSA of $1,067.
0 Comments
Indie distributors, grabbing a frame between Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World Dominion, are out with a handful of decently wide releases for the specialty space including Neon’s Cannes title Crimes of the Future (127 screes), IFC Midnight thriller Watcher (764) and Roadside Attractions’ WWI period piece Benediction (87). Sony Pictures Classics launches Phantom of
0 Comments
Two premiere screenings of rock documentary Freakscene: The Story Of Dinosaur JR grossed over $19K this weekend with a single Saturday show at iconic music venue The Opera House in Williamsburg, Brooklyn taking in north of $17K. Independent distributor Utopia worked with Murmrr, which produces live music events, and art shingle Mondo, which created a
0 Comments
The Innocents, set in a semi-deserted, nondescript high-rise apartment, follows four lonely kids who find each other as well as mind-bending powers one summer, to lethal effect. The horror pic launched at Cannes last year and arrived Stateside last weekend via IFC Midnight in a limited theatrical plus digital release after playing New Directors/New Films.
0 Comments
It’s one of busiest opening weeks in some time for indie releases with Neon (Pleasure), Bleecker Street (Montana Story), IFC Midnight (The Innocents) and Roadside Attractions (Family Camp) in theaters — even as the imminent closure of the Landmark Pico underscores just how arthouses are struggling to win back core demos. Also out, Grasshopper Films
0 Comments
Audrey Diwan’s Happening opened to an estimated $34k on four screens in NY and LA this weekend for a PTA of $8,500. The locations on both coasts — IFC Center/AMC Lincoln Square and The Landmark/AMC The Grove — while limited showed the abortion drama set in 1968 France competing successfully in commercial crossover multiplexes as
0 Comments
Audrey Diwan’s Happening launched New Directors/New Films in April, mesmerizing viewers with the story of a brilliant literature student from a working-class background seeking an abortion to keep her life from derailing. In 1963 France the procedure was illegal. The suspense builds with each week a new chapter title as she seeks help from doctors,
0 Comments
Studio brass wowed theater owners this week with Maverick: Top Gun, Avatar: The Way of Water and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse among other tentpoles. But they were also clear at the just-wrapped CinemaCon that a reviving box office requires a wide breadth of content. “If we narrow what we bring to theaters, our audience will get
0 Comments
Sony Pictures Classics art heist caper The Duke, Neon’s tender Petite Maman, and Charlotte from Good Deed Films, an animated biopic with mature themes, open an eclectic specialty weekend ready to draw older crowds if they’re ready to return. Younger demos are back when they like the pic, as per A24s Everything Everywhere All At
0 Comments
The Tale Of King Crab, a cinematically striking fable shot in rural Italy and Argentina, opened to a three-day gross of $5,120 at Film at Lincoln Center this weekend — the first in a string of Italian offerings set to arrive on the specialty scene through the summer. “In today’s challenging arthouse market, we count
0 Comments
“I see nothing happening on a major scale to try to get the older audiences back to theaters,” griped Sony Pictures Classics’ co-president Tom Bernard. Ideally, Bernard wants NATO to trumpet cinema safety in a big public campaign. (A NATO rep says not in the cards.) He’d like that campaign alongside a creative marketing push
0 Comments
Angelika Film Center and Sony Pictures Classics unveiled a “Bring A Friend Back To The Movies” initiative timed to the April 22 release of dramatic comedy The Duke. The arthouse cinema and specialty distributor are offering a complimentary second ticket to anyone who buys a first directly from the Angelika’s website, app or in the
0 Comments
Viva Maestro, a documentary starring the charismatic music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, opened on a high note taking in $14,310 on two screens — Film Forum/NYC and The Landmark/LA. That’s a PTA of $7,155 for the film directed by Ted Braun (Darfur Now, Betting on Zero) and presented by
0 Comments
The heroine of Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone is a witch, with echoes of vampire and zombie, yes, but mostly with a haunting desire for human connection in 19th century rural Macedonia. The film’s Sundance premiere got great reviews (see Deadline’s here). It’s 94% Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh with critics as Focus Features opens
0 Comments
EXCLUSIVE: PAW Patrol and Bob the Builder creator Keith Chapman has partnered with London indie Snipple Originals to co-create and develop ground-breaking animated kids TV shows. Under his Keith Chapman Productions banner, Chapman and Snipple will create character-driven animated IP for the upper pre-school market. The veteran UK kids TV exec is already developing Paco & the
0 Comments
EXCLUSIVE: Stath Lets Flats and People Just Do Nothing producer Roughcut TV has deepened its push into the premium drama space by snapping up the rights to Nina Milns’ darkly comic satirical debut novel Goddesses, in what it described as a stiffly competitive situation. The comedy producer launched a high-end drama slate two years ago and Sarah Vaughan’s
0 Comments
A24’s SXSW opener Everything Everywhere All At Once, Bleecker Street’s Infinite Storm and Sony Pictures Classics’ Mothering Sunday offer something that’s been rare of late at the specialty box office, fresh content and choice. They’re in a market with only one new studio wide release, Paramount’s The Lost City with Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock.
0 Comments
A24’s smart slasher/horror X grossed over $4.4M on 2,865 screens to take fourth place at the weekend box office, topping expectations for writer/director Ti West’s return after a six-year absence from film. His first ever wide release, a cross between the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Boogie Nights, is currently Certified Fresh at 96% and has a prequel nearly
0 Comments
This is one of the best weekends for new indie releases in some time — a bit of space in theaters to run and audiences slowly, but increasingly, willing to return. Focus Features’ The Outfit – the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Graham Moore (The Imitation Game) — opens nationally on over 1,200 screens with Mark
0 Comments