Awards kudos, critics’ lists, varied nominations and wins are boosting indie film standouts this weekend. The market is crowded as indies vie with each other, studio tentpoles and fare from Pusha: The Rule – Part 2 and Daft Punk & Leiji Matsumoto: Interstella 5555 remastered. But many specialty distributors are more upbeat now than at any point this year.
The Last Showgirl from Roadside Attractions debuted at $50.3k on one screen. It’s a one-week Academy qualifying run for the contender by Gia Coppola starring Pamela Anderson, now a Golden Globe nominee. Both showed up for Q&As at LA’s AMC Century City, helping push the story of a fading Vegas showgirl to the fifth best per-screen opening of the year.
The three-day number also marks Roadside’s second-highest opening PSA in its 20-year history. The distributor said the run featured sellout screenings on both Friday and Saturday across select shows with Anderson and Coppola in attendance, as well as other shows where they were not. The opening signals a highly promising national release starting January 10.
“After seeing how audiences and critics responded to Pam’s performance and the film, the Roadside team knew we had something special,” said co-President Howard Cohen. “The audience reactions this weekend in Century City have been nothing short of spectacular.”
The film’s awards recognition includes Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress in a Drama and Best Original Song for “Beautiful That Way”, performed by Miley Cyrus and written by award-winning composer Andrew Wyatt, Cyrus, and Lykke Li. The film, produced by Utopia, has also received a Gotham Award nomination for Anderson’s performance and a Critics’ Choice Award nomination for its original song. Time Magazine just named Anderson’s work as one of its 10 Best Movie Performances of 2024,
Breaking from tradition, Roadside Attractions opted for a public-facing, high-visibility approach to its Academy-qualifying run, openly reporting the gross — a move uncommon among films in similar runs. Showcasing the film this way allows Roadside to spotlight its box office potential and build momentum for theaters ahead of the nationwide release in January.
A24’s Queer has been catching fire in expansion amid star Daniel Craig’s continued awards run for what’s being called a career-best performance — one that’s quite different from his 007 days. It rounds out the top 10 with $791k on 666 screens in week 3 for a cume of $1.9 million, following Craig’s NBR win and Best Actor nominations from both the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice Awards. The movie is based on the novel by Beat writer William S. Burroughs with Craig as William Lee, a World War II veteran in late-1940s Mexico City who falls for younger man, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey).
New this weekend Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios launched a platform rollout of awards contender Nickel Boys with $60.8k at two NYC theaters, the Angelika and AMC Lincoln Square, for a solid per screen average of $30.4k for writer/director RaMell Ross’s debut narrative film. It expands in New York and hits theaters in Los Angeles next weekend on its way to a wider expansion in January.
Nickel Boys, which premiered at Telluride and opened the New York Film Festival, has been an awards-season magnet including AFI Top Ten Films of the Year; AAFCA’s Best Picture and Best Director; Gotham Awards Best Director, Best Cinematography & Breakout Performer; Golden Globes Best Motion Picture Drama nomination, and multiple honors from festivals and critics groups including NYFCC, and LAFCA.
Based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, it chronicles the bond between two Black teenagers (Ethan Herisse and Wilson), who become wards of a juvenile reformatory in Jim Crow-era Florida. As truths unfold, their profound friendship offers transformation and awakens hope. Also stars Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
The studio is offering opening weekends comps from its American Fiction and A24’s The Zone Of Interest, which had PSAs of, respectively, $35.8k and $31.7k at the same two theaters, although they both debuted on more screens (American Fiction on 7 and The Zone Of Interest on 4).
Noting two from Sideshow/Janus Films. Latvian animated Flow, continues to delight audiences with an estimated gross of $374k on 377 screens for a new cume of $1.3+ million. The film by Gints Zibalodis. toplined by an animated cat, just picking up a Golden Globe nomination for Best Animated Motion Picture and two Critics Choice Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Animated Feature. It has dominated critics group awards, nearly running the board for Best Animated Feature, and was nominated for an ACE Eddie Award.
Sideshow/Janus’ release of Indian director Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix-winner All We Imagine As Light was buoyed this week by two Golden Globes nominations for both Best Non-English Language Motion Picture and Best Director as well as Film Comment Critics’ Poll naming it the #1 film of the year. It grossed an estimated $57k on 34 screens (adding ten) for a cume of $413.2.
Kino Lorber expanded Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada to 74 screens in top markets for a $49.4k weekend, bringing the cume to $100k in week 2 for the film starring Richard Gere. It was the top grossing new release at IFC Center in NYC for the second week in a row and will continue to expand into January.
Telugu wonder Pusha: The Rule – Part 2 from Prathyangira Cinemas is looking at an estimated $3.3 million on 666 screens in week 2 for a no. 8 spot at the domestic box office and a cume pushing $12.8 million. In this action thriller directed by Sukumar and starring Allu Arjun, Fahadh Faasil, Rashmika Mandanna, Pushpa (Arjun) struggles to sustain his sandalwood smuggling business in the face of tough opposition from the police.
Trafalgar Releasing’s Daft Punk & Leiji Matsumoto: Interstella 5555 remastered event which kicked off Thursday Trafalgar is seeing $2.3 across 641 theaters for the four days and $737.8k for the three day weekend.
Limited studio release: Paramount’s September 5 by Tim Fehlbaum opened with $89k at 7 theaters. During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, an American sports broadcasting team must adapt to live coverage the Israeli athletes being held hostage by a terrorist group. Stars Peter Sarsgaard, Ben Chaplin, John Magaro, Leonie Benesch and is directed by.
Indie holdovers: A24’s release of Kyle Mooney’s Y2K earned $685k in week 2 at 1,948 theaters with a $3.76 million cume. Two high school nobodies make the decision to crash the last major celebration before the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 1999.
Vertical’s release of Jude Law-starring The Order by Justin Kurzel earned $365k in week 2 at 603 locations for a cume of $1.64 million.
Neon’s The End by Joshua Oppenheimer, starring Tilda Swinton, expanded, adding 148 locations in week 2 for $51.2k for the three days and a cume of $80k.
Bleecker Street’s The Return saw $79.8k in week 2 for a cume of $650.8k. Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) washes up on the shores of his native Ithaca after 20 years, haggard and unrecognizable to save his beloved wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche), a prisoner in her own home hounded by suitors.
