Box office darling Anora, Sean Baker’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner from Neon, goes wide Friday after a slow platform, expanding to 1,104 screens as indies continue to bust onto screens. Searchlight Pictures’ A Real Pain adds eight locations, with Focus Features’ Conclave and A24’s Heretic continuing, and launching, respectively, in wide release.
A Real Pain starring Kieren Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, who also wrote and directed, adds theaters in Los Angeles, New York and Toronto after a strong opening last weekend, when it took the third-highest per-theater average of the year. It goes to 900+ theaters across all major markets next week.
Opening in moderate release: Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate’s launch of Artist Equity’s Small Things Like These starring Cillian Murphy at 795 theaters.
Directed by Tim Mielants and written by Enda Walsh, the film is based on the bestselling book of same name by Claire Keegan. It opened the Berlin Film Festival (see Deadline review). Murphy stars as Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man in a small Irish town, who discovers disturbing secrets at a local convent and must confront his past and the town’s complicit silence. Producers are Alan Moloney, Cillian Murphy, Catherine Magee, Matt Damon and Drew Vinton.
IFC Films opens Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point in 405 locations. It premiered at Cannes, Deadline review here. On Christmas Eve, a family gathers for what could be the last holiday in their ancestral home. As the night wears on and generational tensions arise, one of the teenagers sneaks out with her friends to claim the wintry suburb for her own. Written by Taormina and Eric Berger. Stars Michael Cera, Elsie Fisher, Maria Dizzia, Sawyer Spielberg, Francesca Scorsese
IFC’s Memoir of a Snail expands to 467 theaters in week 3.
Mubi presents Andrea Arnold’s Bird (American Honey, Fish Tank) at the Angelika in New York. Expands next week. Academy Award- inner Arnold’s long-awaited return to fiction filmmaking is a coming-of-age fable about marginalized life on the fringes of contemporary society, where 12-year-old Bailey (newcomer Nykiya Adams) lives with her devoted but chaotic single dad Bug (Barry Keoghan, Saltburn) and wayward brother in a squat in Gravesend, North Kent. Approaching puberty and seeking attention and adventure, Bailey’s fractured home life is transformed when she encounters Bird (Franz Rogowski, Passages), a mysterious stranger on a journey of his own. Premiered at Cannes, see Deadline review.
Metrograph Pictures debuts Jeremy Clapin’s sci-fi thriller Meanwhile On Earth starring Megan Northam on 157 screens. Elsa (Northam) and her family are struggling following the disappearance of her brother Franck, an astronaut who vanished during his first mission. While stargazing one night, Elsa is shocked to receive contact from Franck, but her joy is short-lived when she learns of the dark and troubling forces behind Franck’s reappearance. Premiered at Berlin, see Deadline review.
Vertical opens sci-fi thriller Elevation by George Nolfi starring Anthony Mackie and Morena Baccarin debuts on 1,416 screens. Set in the post-apocalyptic Rocky Mountains, a single father and two women venture from the safety of their homes to face monstrous creatures to save the life of a young boy.
Chinese martial arts drama 100 Yards from Well Go USA. By by Xu Haofeng and Xu Junfeng. In volatile 1920s Tianjin, a mere decade after China’s last imperial dynasty was overthrown, a clandestine martial arts circle arose to deter crime and maintain peace between rival martial arts schools. But after a renowned master dies and names his apprentice—rather than his son—as his successor, he unwittingly kicks off a fierce power struggle that will bring the entire city to the brink of chaos. On six screens.
Netflix opens Denzel Washington-produced The Piano Lesson in 60 theaters. Directed by Malcolm Washington based on the August Wilson play of the same name, it stars Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu and Skylar Aleece Smith with Danielle Deadwyler and Corey Hawkins. Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, The Piano Lesson follows the lives of a family, and a prized heirloom, the family piano, which documents their history through carvings made by their enslaved ancestor. Premiered at Telluride, see Deadline review. On Netflix November 22.
The streamer also has Jacques Audiard’s Cannes-premiering Emilia Pérez with Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz continuing in 110 theaters. Streaming next weekend.
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