Big news in specialty this weekend as Asteroid City arrives in theaters with Wes Anderson and his army of fans behind it and a major marketing campaign by Focus Features. The director’s latest opens at six locations in New York and Los Angeles, where Focus has partnered with Landmark for the reopening of Sunset, the
Focus Features
Ethan Coen’s Focus Features and Working Title comedy caper, Drive-Away Dolls, will open on Sept. 22. It won’t be a surprise to see this Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan movie among the lineups of the fall film festival trifecta. Written by Coen and Tricia Cooke, Drive-Away Dolls follows Jamie, an uninhibited free spirit bemoaning yet
Here’s a movie Focus Features is excited about for next awards season, and it wouldn’t be shocking to see it world premiering at a big film festival some time this year: Alexander Payne’s New England prep school comedy The Holdovers. The Universal label just dated the pic for November 10 with a wider break on
Focus Features has set a September 8 global release date for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3. That will give some breadth to the post-Labor Day box office and an option for older female moviegoers, that weekend already having New Line’s The Nun 2 on the schedule. Part 3 was written and directed by the
Focus Features has dated Wes Anderson’s next movie Asteroid City for June 16, 2023. Do we smell a Cannes selection? Pic will go even wider on June 23. Universal, as previously reported, has overseas. Focus previously teamed with Anderson and Indian Paintbrush on 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom. Asteroid City, written by Anderson based on a story
EXCLUSIVE: On the heels of releasing Goran Stolevski’s feature directorial debut You Won’t Be Alone, Focus Features is re-teaming with the Macedonian-Australian filmmaker on his second feature, Of An Age. Focus has scheduled Of An Age for February 10, 2023, with a national expansion on February 17. Universal has offshore rights sans Australia. Written, directed,
Sight Unseen, Makeready and Hillman Grad Productions’ A Thousand and One will be released in theaters on March 31, 2023 from Focus Features. The pic reps the feature directorial debut of A.V. Rockwell, off a script the filmmaker wrote, which follows unapologetic and free-spirited Inez (Teyana Taylor), who kidnaps six-year-old Terry from the foster care
Film premieres and headlines spilling from a trio of festivals either in full swing (Venice), just starting (Telluride) or queued up (Toronto) have indie exhibitors and distributors the most hopeful since Covid hit that a stream of new films could fire up the arthouse market. Todd Field’s Cate Blanchett-starrer TÁR (debuted to a six-minute standing ovation
A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies hit theaters with the per-screen average this weekend in a limited opening, and the second best of the year. That record was set last spring with Everything Everywhere All at Once as the indie distributor piles up successes. Halina Reijn’s Gen-Z whodunnit comedy grossed $226,526 on six screens in NY and
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris grossed $1.35 million in its second week with a mix of arthouse and commercial theaters among top 10 locations and a nice hold from its opening weekend (-31%). Cume to date is $4.65 million for the film starring Leslie Manville as a British housekeeper who dreams of owning a Christian
Focus Features’ Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris will hit an estimated $1.9 million weekend gross at 980 theaters drawing women with those 55 years of age and older repping 44% of the total. Turnout was best on the coasts for the drama starring Leslie Manville and Isabelle Huppert. That’s a PSA of $1,939 and a
Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris, a kind Cinderella story for older women with a Dior twist, arrives in 978 theaters this weekend with strong reviews and great word of mouth. The film is a known property among that demo given its prime trailer treatment before Focus Features’ fan favorite Downtown Abbey: A New Era —
Focus Features has set a limited theatrical release for Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on December 2, 2022. The film, directed by Michael Showalter from a screenplay by David Marshall Grant and Dan Savage based on Michael Ausiello’s best-selling memoir, will expand domestically on December 9 and
Highly anticipated Downton Abbey: A New Era made $1.050 million in Thursday previews that began at 7 p.m. at more than 3,300 theaters. It is Focus Features’ widest ever U.S. release and one that comes with a weight of responsibility as the film to finally catapult older demos back into theaters. Focus Features distribution chief
SUNDAY AM UPDATE: Refresh for more analysis and chart Focus Features’ Downton Abbey: A New Era is coming in at $16M, and while some might snipe that it’s lower than the first one’s robust $31M start, particularly against a production cost that’s double from the first at $40M, keep in mind this is a sequel to period
“I have very little to say except that I think it very charming and kind of you all to give us your Sunday night,” said a disarming Julian Fellowes at the NYC premiere of Downton Abbey: A New Era last Sunday. Distributor Focus Features – and the broader industry — hopes audiences will give the
FRIDAY MIDDAY UPDATE: Focus Features sequel Downton Abbey: A New Era is heading toward an $18M opening after a projected $8M Friday that includes $1M in Thursday night previews. That will put the Simon Curtis directed title in second place for the weekend behind Disney’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which will hold on the No. 1
“We have our own superheroes here at Focus Feature and they are going to bring older filmgoers back to your movie theaters,” Lisa Bunnell, Focus Features distribution chief, promised thousands of cinema execs at Universal’s CinemaCon presentation Wednesday. “They want to see something new. They come,” she said, welcoming the cast of Downton Abbey: A
Focus Features has picked up Of An Age, the second feature by writer/director Goran Stolevski. The announcement comes as the distributor presents the helmer’s debut feature, You Won’t Be Alone — about a witch struggling for human connection in 19th century rural Macedonia — this weekend in limited release. Of An Age is set in the
Saturday AM Update: The first Halloween in two years during the pandemic is taking its toll on the domestic box office, a grey cloud which many saw coming, with many trick-or-treating or heading to parties tonight. Essentially, whenever the holiday falls on a Sunday, it’s poised to gut the weekend. And, yes, we can blame
Focus Features has set a moderate release for The Outfit on Feb. 25, 2022. The pic reps Oscar winner Graham Moore’s directorial debut, and follows Leonard, played by Oscar winner Mark Rylance, an English tailor who used to craft suits on London’s world-famous Savile Row. But after a personal tragedy, he’s ended up in Chicago, operating a
Focus Features landed another specialty success with The Card Counter, Paul Schrader’s biggest directorial opening in over 30 years since 1987’s Light of Day and with a likely No. 8 ranking at the North American box office this weekend. The film – starring Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe — ran in 580
Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter moves from Venice into 579 theaters this weekend — the first in a welcome stream of specialty films from the Lido, Telluride and Toronto that could, perhaps maybe, buck up the struggling arthouse market this fall. The film is 90% certified fresh and hails from Focus Features, which presented one
Focus Features is shifting Downton Abbey 2 from Dec. 22 to Friday, March 18, 2022. Universal Pictures International will release internationally on the same date. The pic’s original principal cast have returned for the second film, which wraps production in August. New additions are Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock, Nathalie Baye and Dominic West. The screenplay is by
Focus Features will open Wolf starring George MacKay and Lily-Rose Depp in theaters on Friday, Dec. 3. The first weekend of December, following the five-day Thanksgiving frame, is notoriously one of the slowest at the box office in pre-pandemic times, however, arthouse and awards season fare always break through. Wolf will be on marquees with other limited fare
(Interactive chart with estimates below) Three different premieres led the specialty box office this weekend with each film breaking a 100K weekend gross. First, Focus Features’ Final Account splashed in at $150K this opening weekend. Over a decade in the making, the timely documentary offers a portrait of the last living generation of everyday people
Robert Eggers’ next movie The Northman will be hitting theaters on April 8, 2022 via Focus Features. The revenge thriller from The Lighthouse filmmaker stars Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Björk and reteams the filmmaker with his Lighthouse star Willem Dafoe and The Witch star Anya Taylor-Joy. The Northman explores how far a Viking prince will go
The feature take of Paul Gallico’s novella Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is set for a theatrical release March 4, 2022 via Focus Features in the U.S. and Canada, the distributor said Tuesday. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris stars Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Jason Isaacs, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptista, Lucas Bravo and Rose Williams. Directed
Focus Features said Friday that it will release its dramatic thriller Stillwater, directed by Spotlight Oscar winner Tom McCarthy and starring Matt Damon, in domestic theaters on July 30, 2021. The pic, from Participant and DreamWorks, centers on an American oil-rig roughneck (Damon) from Oklahoma who travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter (Abigail
Focus Features will be releasing Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast on November 12. Outlander‘s Caitriona Balfe stars with Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds and 10-year-old Jude Hill in the pic, a poignant story of love, laughter and loss in one boy’s childhood, amid the music and social tumult of the late 1960s. Dornan and Balfe play