‘Tár,’ ‘Till’ Post Tepid Numbers in Wide Release at Specialty Box Office

Deadline is offering up a record number of titles in the lineup for Contenders Film: Los Angeles, which kicks off this morning live and in-person at the DGA Theater on Sunset Boulevard.

Strengthened by the worldwide release this past weekend of Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the Walt Disney Studios has crossed the $3B box office mark globally for the year so far.

The Fabelmans grossed an estimated $160k this weekend at four theaters in NY and LA. That’s a $40K per screen average, on par with recent strong (for post-Covid) specialty openings like The Banshees Of Inisherin (at $45k PSA) and Tár (also $40k), both on four screens too, reflecting a definite pickup in the specialty space. Spielberg’s written, directed and produced semi-autobiographical tale debuted into one of the biggest openings of the year with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

That figure is just a few hundred dollars above the $39,655 platform release average of Focus Features’ “Tár” and below the $46,113 of Searchlight’s “The Banshees of Inisherin.” Though it isn’t the best platform launch among the early Oscar contenders this awards season, Universal said that it had projected a $40,000 average for “The Fabelmans” prior to release and were pleased by the film’s Friday-to-Saturday drop of just 3%, signaling that the film is gaining the kind of word-of-mouth it will need in the weeks ahead. “With ‘The Fabelmans,’ Steven Spielberg has crafted one of his most personal stories yet, an incredible universal coming of age story that clearly resonated with audiences this weekend earning an A CinemaScore, 96% audience and 95% critical scores on Rotten Tomatoes and we have no doubt the film will captivate audiences throughout the holiday season,” Universal’s domestic distribution president Jim Orr said in a statement.

Warner Bros/New Line/DC’s Black Adam handily crossed $300M global this frame, landing so far at $182.3M from the international box office and $319.7M worldwide.

Rock documentary Meet Me In The Bathroom grossed $85,683 in four locations for a per screen average of $21,421 in week one, a milestone for the indie distributor. Two of four screenings were one night only, sold-out events at The Fonda in LA and Webster Hall in NY (live performances by The Moldy Peaches, Adam Green, Wah Together)

Till stars Danielle Deadwyler and John Douglas Thompson and director Chinonye Chukwu kicked off Deadline’s Contenders Film: New York event with a discussion about the atmosphere they sought to cultivate on the film’s set.

It’s that time again, when Deadline decamps to New York City to bring you the latest installment of our Contenders Film series, with the lowdown on some of our favorite Oscar-season possibilities.

EXCLUSIVE: Physicist and author Alan Lightman has been pondering some major questions. For instance, “Where do we humans fit in the grand scheme of things? Are we just atoms and molecules, or something more? How does consciousness arise from the material neurons in our brains?”

Let’s celebrate the heydays of this autumn’s box office where we can, the season greatly hampered by a lack of tentpole product.

Broadway box office held steady last week, with impressive attendance for recent arrivals Almost Famous and Kimberly Akimbo, and Leopoldstadt again setting a house record at the Longacre with receipts of $1,158,051.

Searchlight Pictures’ The Banshees Of Inisherin opened to an estimated $181,000 and a raring per screen average of $45,250, beating Tár’s impressive $40,000. Both opened in four locations and now rank no. 2 and no. 3 for an indie per-theater gross this year after A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once. That film’s in a class of its own with an April opening PTA of over $50k on many more screens and a $100 million+ worldwide grosses. But Banshees is the latest in a wave of strong limited openings this month from Decision To Leave to Triangle of Sadness to Aftersun to Till making the case for an arthouse revival. Case made.

Finally, after a very long drought at the box office, a fire-breathing theatrical-windowed tentpole arrives in New Line’s Dwayne Johnson title, Black Adam.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Homecoming, a patriotic rescue movie, dominated the mainland China box office for the third successive weekend. Overall numbers remained anemic in the first full week after the National Day holiday period, sometimes referred to as a ‘Golden Week’. “Homecoming” garnered $12.1 million (RMB85.6 million) between Friday and Sunday, according to data from consultancy and research firm Artisan Gateway. That gave the film a 64% share of the nationwide weekend aggregate. Accordingly, it was far ahead of second-placed film “Give Me Five,” which released on Sept. 9, 2022. “Give Me Five” earned just $1.9 million over the weekend, for a six-week cumulative of $63.8 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief While the Busan International Film Festival was busily hailing a return to normality the slump at South Korea’s commercial box office deepened dramatically over the most recent weekend. Cinemagoing nationwide was worth only $4.20 million between Friday and Sunday, the lowest weekend total since April and a time before Korean cinemas shed their COVID restrictions. The weekend’s top film “Life Is Beautiful” managed the lowest first place score of any film this year, with a weekend haul of just $777,000, according to data from Kobiz, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).

Chinonye Chukwu’s Till got off to a solid start at the specialized box office, grossing over $15k per theater from 16 locations in five markets for an estimated weekend gross of $240.9k, possibly more depending on how Sunday plays out.

“Till,” directed by “Clemency” filmmaker Chinonye Chukwu, was released in five cities this weekend and grossed $240,940, bringing its per theater average to $15,059 as it will expand to 150-200 theaters in 30 cities next weekend. With critical acclaim on Rotten Tomatoes with a 100% approval rating and a 92% positive rating on Comscore/Screen Engine’s Posttrak, “Till” has built Oscar buzz for lead actress Danielle Deadwyler for her performance as Mamie Till-Mobley, who spent years fighting for justice after the racist lynching of her 14-year-old son, Emmett.

The Halloween Ends numbers are coming in, and the studio might not be so pleased.

Christopher Landon is resurrecting the day-and-date release topic after initial box office results for Halloween Ends have it coming in under studio estimates. The Freaky director is calling out movie studios for releasing movies in theatres and streaming services at the same time.