‘The Banshees Of Inisherin’ Crowns October Indie Revival – Specialty Box Office
23.10.2022 - 23:11
/ deadline.com
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.
“It’s really cool, it looks like there are a number of specialty films that are out there and doing well. It’s not the old numbers we used to get — like $75k, $80k, $90k per screen. Those will come back, someday, at some point. But there are a lot of seats being filled in the arthouse,” said Searchlight distribution chief Frank Rodriquez. “The patient is healthy.”
Banshees played The Grove and Century City in LA and the Angelika and AMC Lincoln Square in NY. McDonagh joined sold out post-screening Q&As Fri. and Sat. The film was no. 1 at the Angelika Film Center over the weekend and out-grossed only by Black Adam at the Grove, Century City, and Lincoln Square.
It expands to 50 theaters in 11 to 12 more markets next week, including Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, then moves to 600-800 locations thereafter. Banshees world premiered last month at the Venice Film Festival where it won Best Screenplay for McDonagh and Best Actor for Colin Farrell. Awards buzz could propel it wider.
“Once you get a big story in Los