‘A Man Called Otto’ Review: A Surprisingly Sincere Tom Hanks Showcase Of Emotional Proportions

In an age of streaming and Covid concerns when many older skewing dramatic films find their way safely into homes, Sony rolled the dice on the Tom Hanks drama A Man Called Otto with the title out-performing its MLK 4-day $8M third weekend wide expansion projections with $15.3M.

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One day after Lisa Marie Presley’s sudden death, and the tributes have still been rolling in.

On a winter Thursday still ruled by James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, Sony’s Tom Hanks drama A Man Called Otto and Lionsgate’s Gerard Butler action pic, Plane, sought to get an early start with respectively $635K and $625K each.

Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter and only child of Elvis, has died suddenly aged 54, it's been announced. 

Editor’s note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.

Sony’s Tom Hanks-starrer A Man Called Otto banked $4.2 million in a lively second frame as it moved to 637 locations nationwide from four in NY and LA. Strong word of mouth propelled moviegoers into seats with particular strength in the heartland and momentum looks good as the adult drama/comedy heads into next week’s wide expansion for the holiday weekend. It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day next Monday.   

Alcarràs, winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin, opens on five screens in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, presented by Mubi; Quiver Distribution releases Candy Land in nine theaters; and Sony’s Tom Hanks-starring A Man Called Otto, UAR’s Women Talking and IFC Films’ Corsage move into moderate expansions as the broader specialty market barrels into Oscar nominations and a new year of reckoning with adult audiences.

Tom Hanks believes Mae West got it wrong. Goodness has something to do with it.

Specialty film closes the book on a mixed 2022 this weekend with the limited release by Sony of Tom Hanks-starring A Man Called Otto; a literary doc by Lizzie Gottlieb from Sony Pictures Classics and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest from Neon via Cannes. 

When you have an international best seller that was on the NYT list for 42 weeks and then made into a multi-Oscar nominated Swedish film that became the third most successful in the history of that country Ingmar Bergman called home, you might wonder what the need was for an American english language remake? The answer is a chance to give Tom Hanks a role he can run with, and most importantly to bring a very human, often funny, character-driven story back to light in a time that needs it more than ever.