Specialty Box Office: Win Win Weekend For Searchlight

Weekend Box Office: March 18th through the 20th

You may know Tom McCarthy better as an actor than a director, but McCarthy’s debut writing/directing effort, “The Station Agent,” took home over 22 awards including three from Sundance in 2003. His next film, “The Visitor,” grossed strong opening weekend numbers along with garnering a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Richard Jenkins. This past weekend, Fox Searchlight released McCarthy’s latest film, Win Win, to the tune of $150,362. The film stars Paul Giamatti as an attorney by day but high school wrestling coach by night. It is McCarthy’s strongest opening to date with a $30,072 average in 5 theaters, and was up a promising 75% on Saturday.

While box office receipts for studio films continue to decline from years past, Lionsgate tried out a new marketing tool for this weekend’s release of The Lincoln Lawyer. Groupon/Fandango advertised a big discount, and Lionsgate was able to sell around 190,000 tickets at $6 apiece. This was enough to help keep “Lawyer” in the box office top four—edging out Paul by a little under $200,000. It could take a couple of weeks to see the real effect of Groupon advertising on “Lawyer,” but Groupon has already been looking for films in the future to partner up with on similar marketing projects. For more information, see Dana Harris’ outstanding article on indiewire.com.

U.S Indie:
”Cedar Rapids” expanded to 462 theaters in its sixth weekend. The Fox Searchlight release is sporting a low $1,130 average, but the comedy is continually grossing around $500,000 a week—no doubt one of the consistent factors on its way to grossing upwards of $5 million. The Ed Helms vehicle might not have much shelf life left, but the simple story about an insurance convention in Cedar Rapids has no doubt overachieved financially at the box office.

Roadside Attractions released The Music Never Stopped in 32 theaters for a dissappointing average of $2,766. The Jim Kohlberg directed film is about a father (J.K. Simmons) trying to reconnect with his son. While “Stopped” isn’t likely to break any box office records, the film should stick around for at least a couple more weeks as it tries to build on the $88,500 debut weekend.

In its sophomore outing, “Kill the Irishman” did not fail to maintain momentum as it expanded to 21 theaters and held on with an average of $6,697. Ray Stevenson and Vincent D’Onofrio round out the action/crime film from writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh. Anchor Bay will continue to expand “Irishman” following the very strong debut last weekend. 

World Cinema:

Juliet Binoche is back on the screen with IFC’s latest release, “Certified Copy.” The film from Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami is also a certifiable success so far after two weeks of consistent domestic performance. “Copy” expanded from just three screens last weekend to 21, and will see more provided it can maintain a promising $5,771.

“Of Gods and Men” is also managing to stick around in theaters following a recent large expansion to 94 locations. The Sony Pictures Classics release has a decent $3,139 average in its fourth weekend and will most likely break the $2 million mark domestically in a couple weeks.

Documentary:
Bill Cunningham New York played in a single New York theater this past weekend but made a very promising $33,677. Its five-day total was actually $49,036—making its distributor, Zeitgeist, one proud parent. “Cunningham” chronicles one photographer’s fascination with the way people dress. It’s wonderful to be able to finally report on a documentary again from what seemed like a long drought in documentary news at the box office.

Specialty Box Office Top 5

Box Office Top 10

Next Weekend:
White Irish Drinkers, Peep World, Honey (Bal), Illegal, Korkoro, Sucker Punch, Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules