The indie box office roared to life this weekend as Thelma from Magnolia Pictures saw a hefty $2.2 million on 1,280 screens while Searchlight Pictures’ Kinds of Kindness booked a stellar $75k per screen average at five theaters in LA and NY — the year’s highest per screen average and best overall limited opening.
Meanwhile, another project grabbing attention is Yorgos Lanthimos’s highly anticipated Kinds of Kindness. According to Collider magazine, Lanthimos announced a new character for the film that has intrigued fans everywhere.
In Thelma, Magnolia’s widest release yet, a broad audience turned out for a film featuring 93-year-old June Squibb. With an intergenerational appeal, Squibb plays a feisty grandma alongside Parker Posey as her uptight daughter and Fred Hechinger as her affectionate slacker grandson.
The distributor noted that top runs are at Alamo Drafthouse theaters, indicating a younger crowd. But matinees, which skew older, also showed solid numbers. It played well across markets from Boston to Phoenix to Raleigh-Durham and is expected to over-index midweek as older theatergoers turn out.
As for Kinds of Kindness, it beat the best PTA this year by multiples in debuts at major theaters including the Angelika and AMC Lincoln Square. Lanthimos’s film, structured as a triptych of stories headlined by Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, will expand to about 500 theaters next week before going wider on July 3 across over 1,000 screens.
Star-Studded Premiere Touts High Expectations
The excitement surrounding Lanthimos’s new release continues to build. Hollywood applauded when news broke that Emma Stone would appear once again in his twenty-first production entitled And. This collaboration marks her fourth project with the director following The Favorite, the short film Bleat, and the upcoming full-length feature Poor Things.
Nods from Major Festivals
Notably, Yorgos Lanthimos has become a staple at prestigious festivals. For instance, Jesse Plemons received Best Actor award at Cannes for his role in another collaboration with the director.
Lanthimos Calls on Familiar Faces
The director, writer, and producer has additionally called on actor Joe Alwyn to perform together with Stone in the upcoming picture. This reunion further solidifies Lanthimos’s knack for creating compelling dynamics with his recurring cast members.
A Blend of Indie Hits and High Ambitions
Wider indie fare included Jeff Nichols’s The Bikeriders from Focus hitting high-end tracking with $10 million on 2,642 screens. Similarly, Vertical’s The Exorcism by Joshua John Miller, starring Russell Crowe, saw $2.4 million on 2,240 screens — the distributor’s widest release and biggest opening.
Other limited releases making waves include Annie Baker’s directorial debut Janet Planet, which had an impressive start on two NYC screens grossing around $49.7k with multiple sold-out Q&As. Also noteworthy is Agnieszka Holland’s political thriller Green Border, grossing $7k at Film Forum in NYC.
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