‘Leopoldstadt’, ‘The Piano Lesson’ Lead Broadway Newcomers At Box Office; ‘Funny Girl’, ‘Phantom Of The Opera’ Major Draws

Danielle Brooks celebrated the opening night of her Broadway show The Piano Lesson just days ago and she sadly has to take a break from performing as she just tested positive for COVID-19.

opened Thursday night on Broadway, is mostly in tune.  The August Wilson play’s greatest asset is its young leads John David Washington and Danielle Brooks, both of whom are already widely admired, but display an altogether new and enticing range of skills. 2 hours and 45 minutes, with one intermission. At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Samuel L. Jackson had his marching orders. So when actor John David Washington approached him for tips about playing Boy Willie, a role Jackson originated in the 1987 production of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” he clammed up. “I was specifically told by the director not to give him advice,” Jackson says. “John David asked several times, but when he realized that I was not allowed to help him, he stopped asking.” The director, in this case, is LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who also happens to be Jackson’s wife, as well as the first woman to oversee a production of Wilson’s work on Broadway. The two are teaming up on the hotly anticipated revival of the classic drama, only this time Sam is playing Boy Willie’s uncle, Doaker Charles. It marks his first time on Broadway since 2011’s “The Mountaintop,” in which he played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and LaTanya’s  first time directing after a run of acclaimed stage performances, including the 2014 revival of “A Raisin in the Sun” and 2018’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Naman Ramachandran After 22 weeks in cinemas across Ireland and the U.K., writer-director Colm Bairéad’s “An Cailín Ciúin” (“The Quiet Girl”) has crossed €1 million ($971,000) at the box office. The film is Ireland’s entry in the Oscars’ international feature category. Based on Irish author Claire Keegan’s story “Foster,” the coming-of-age film, set in rural Ireland in 1981, follows Cáit (Catherine Clinch) as she is sent from her overcrowded, dysfunctional household to live with distant relatives for the summer. It has been an unstoppable force on the festival and awards circuit, winning top prizes at the Berlin, Dublin and Taipei film festivals and sweeping the Irish Film and Television Awards. Produced by Cleona Ní Chrualaoi for Inscéal, the film is distributed by Break Out Pictures and Curzon.

Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl, which is Ireland’s entry in the Best International Film Oscar race this year, has punched through the €1m ($971,000) box office ceiling in a record-breaking performance for an Irish-language feature.

Focus Features’Tár opened in limited release to strong results with $160,000 at four locations in New York and Los Angles for a $40,000 per theater average, one of the best PTAs since Covid and not bad for a 2-hour and 38-minute arthouse film pre-pandemic.

After a pandemic recovery year in which Focus has started many of its releases with larger theater counts, “Tár” is starting with a return to the traditional four-screen launch in New York and Los Angeles, earning $160,000 for a per-theater average of $40,000. With the LA theaters that first got platform releases, the Arclight Hollywood and Landmark Pico, both now closed, Focus has turned to the AMC locations in Century City and the Grove on Fairfax to release “Tár,” while releasing it at the Angelika and AMC Lincoln Square in New York.

Jordan Moreau “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” is slowly getting ready to take a bite out of the weekend box office. It earned $575,000 from 3,453 theaters in Thursday previews, while David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam” picked up $550,000 million from 3,005 theaters. Sony’s live-action/CGI hybrid, co-financed by TSG, is a family-friendly movie about a singing crocodile, starring Grammy-nominated artist Shawn Mendes as the titular reptile. The studio projects an opening haul of $11 million to $12 million, with some projections belting out upwards of $15 million. With a budget of $50 million, it will need plenty of support from kids and families over the fall to snap up a profit. The cast includes Javier Bardem as Hector P. Valenti, Lyle’s flamboyant owner, Brett Gelman as Mr. Grumps and Constance Wu, Scoot McNairy and Winslow Fegley as the Primm family. The Primms move to a new house in New York City, where they discover Lyle, a saltwater crocodile with the voice of a high-end recording artist, living in their attic.

Billy Eichner’s Universal-backed comedy “Bros” flopped at the box office during its opening weekend with a $4.8 million bow, about half of the $8 million to $10 million that the studio projected. Eichner, in a now viral tweet, claimed that straight people not showing up to an LGBTQ comedy was a driving force behind “Bros” underperformance. “Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore, etc., straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for ‘Bros,'” Eichner wrote. “And that’s disappointing but it is what it is.” Eichner is certainly correct that some straight moviegoers weren’t interested in the material, while homophobia about two men falling in love also likely figured in. During a recent trip to a multiplex in Georgia, for instance, this writer saw a group of men being openly homophobic by mocking the “Bros” poster for featuring a guy putting his hand on another guy’s butt. However, the $4.8 million opening for “Bros” is so low that it also means many LGBTQ viewers didn’t show up to see the comedy in theaters either. So why did “Bros” disappoint?

On the TV series “Glee,” Lea Michele honed an image of being Barbra Lite. There is nothing light about her playing Fanny Brice in the current Broadway revival of “Funny Girl,” which opened last spring and now stars Michele in the title role.

Sarigama Cinemas’ Ponniyin Selvan: Part One crashed the weekend box office at no. 6, looking at $4+ million on 500 screens for a per theater average of $8,260, the biggest of the top ten.

Lea Michele brought Broadway to television when she appeared on Friday’s edition of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Hold onto your bucket hats: Sony’s action-thriller “Bullet Train” crossed $100 million at the domestic box office. It’s an impressive milestone (in post-COVID times) for an original movie that doesn’t involve marquee comic book heroes or intergalactic adventures. It helps, of course, that a bankable actor like Brad Pitt stars in the film, as a heavily therapized assassin named Ladybug. “Bullet Train” reached $101 million in domestic ticket sales on Friday, making it only the 14th release this year to hit that benchmark. With another $130 million at the international box office, the film has now earned $231 million in global ticket sales to date.

Paramount’s horror movie Smile struck up $2M in Thursday night previews that started at 7 p.m., a figure that’s just above M. Night Shyamalan’s Old from summer 2021, which did $1.5M in its previews, and just under Universal/Blumhouse’s Black Phone Thursday previews which were $3M in June.

Selome Hailu ‘MLK/X,’ the fourth installment of Disney+ and National Geographic’s period drama anthology series ‘Genius,’ has set its lead cast: Kelvin Harrison Jr. will play Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Aaron Pierre will play Malcolm X, Weruche Opia will play Coretta Scott King and Jayme Lawson will play Betty Shabazz. “Genius: MLK/X” will explore the formative years, pioneering accomplishments, dueling philosophies and key personal relationships of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. While King advanced racial equality through nonviolent protest, Malcolm X argued forcefully for Black empowerment, identity and self-determination. With their formidable wives, Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz, by their sides, King and Malcolm X became synonymous with the civil rights era and the fight for racial and economic justice.

After a four-week hiatus, Meghan Markle's top-rated podcast "Archetypes" will resume with new episodes on Oct. 4. The Duchess of Sussex had paused her Spotify podcast out of respect to Queen Elizabeth II's passing in September.

The Piano Lesson led the pack of Broadway’s recent arrivals at the box office last week, with the August Wilson revival starring Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington and Danielle Brooks grossing $795,306 for its first seven performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.