Independent

Utopia opened Clay Tatum and Whitmer Thomas’ slacker comedy The Civil Dead, the feature debut from the lifelong friends from Gulf Shores, Alabama who have been making projects together — from skateboarding videos to an HBO special — since grade school. It’s grossed $17k so far on 27 screens including a sneak-preview Q&A tour at Alamo
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Diverse festival notables from Hannah Ha Ha to The Blue Caftan join a spattering of specialty horror titles led by Consecration, and the U.S. theatrical debut of Gaspar Noé’s controversial Irréversible: Straight Cut. The last is presented by Altered Innocence, whose owner Frank Jaffe spoke with Deadline about why he wanted to give Noe’s unusual
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Animated fairy tale The Amazing Maurice voiced by Emilia Clarke, Hugh Laurie, David Thewlish, Gemma Arterton and Himesh Patel, jumps from Sundance to 1,700 screens via Viva Pictures, the distributor’s widest release to date and a big one for any independently produced animated film. And Civil War drama Freedom’s Path starring Gerran Howell, RJ Cyler, and Ewen
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Even on a specialty level, horror just works post-pandemic with the latest pop from a strong showing by a trio of films, Fear and Infinity Pool, released this weekend, and Skinamarink in week three. Fear hails from Deon and Roxanne Avent Taylor’s Hidden Empire Film Group, the all-Black production company behind cult hit Meet The
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Neon and Topic Studios present writer/director Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool at 1,835 theaters in a lively specialty weekend sandwiched between a new crop of Sundance films and noteworthy expansions in the glow of Oscar nominations. Infinity Pool, staring Alexander Skarsgard, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman and Jalil Lespert, had a splashy debut last weekend in the
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Sony Pictures Classics present Florian Zeller’s The Son on 554 screens, an emotional family drama that folllows the director’s 2020 Oscar-winning The Father. As with that film, The Son is adapted from Zeller’s own stage play along with Christopher Hampton. Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, Zen McGrath and Anthony Hopkins star in the cautionary tale of a
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A24’s The Whale crossed the $11-million mark in week six as it jumped to 1,500 screens from 835 as the Brendan Fraser-starrer and other contenders continue to tweak theatrical runs through awards season. The film, which received a PGA nomination for Best Motion Picture this week along with SAG noms for Fraser and co-star Hong
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Karen Cooper, longtime director of New York City’s indie cinema gem Film Forum, says she’s stepping down at a good time, not just for her, but for the business. Despite all the naysayers and after slogging through Covid with the help of federal grants and weathering a slow recovery, Cooper said business is currently pretty
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In a major shift one of the nation’s premier arthouses, Karen Cooper will be exiting as director on June 30 after 50 years running the Film Forum in New York City. Deputy Director Sonya Chung will assume the role. Cooper has led the nonprofit cinema since its first iteration in 1972 as a 50-seat loft
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Sony’s Tom Hanks-starrer A Man Called Otto banked $4.2 million in a lively second frame as it moved to 637 locations nationwide from four in NY and LA. Strong word of mouth propelled moviegoers into seats with particular strength in the heartland and momentum looks good as the adult drama/comedy heads into next week’s wide
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Alcarràs, winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin, opens on five screens in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, presented by Mubi; Quiver Distribution releases Candy Land in nine theaters; and Sony’s Tom Hanks-starring A Man Called Otto, UAR’s Women Talking and IFC Films’ Corsage move into moderate expansions as the broader specialty market barrels
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New Yorkers braved the cold this weekend for Corsage at two theaters ( IFC Center, Film at Lincoln Center) as Marie Kreutzer’s biopic of Empress Elisabeth of Austria starring Vicky Krieps grossed an estimated $32,000 over the three-day weekend for a robust $16k per screen average. The four-day estimate for the IFC Films biopic of
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Patti Smith hosted a New York screening of Corsage last week, one of many showings since the Oscar-shortlisted Best International Feature contender premiered to a warm welcome in Cannes, where it won Best Performance, Un Certain Regard, for star Vicky Krieps as the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Sisi for short. It’s fitting that Smith, royalty
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French author and now filmmaker Annie Ernaux is having a year. She was just awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize for literature. Her autobiographical L’Événement was adapted by director Audrey Diwan into the critically acclaimed Happening, released last spring. And this weekend, Kino Lorber presents her directorial debut, The Super 8 Years, at Film at Lincoln Center and DCTV
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From its triumphant world premiere (with seven-minute standing ovation) at the Venice Film Festival, A24 opens Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale in theaters this weekend amid a whirl of Oscar buzz around star Brendan Fraser. The former action star carries the psychological drama as Charlie, a reclusive and severely obese English teacher trying to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter. Deadline critic
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A platoon of titles hits the specialty circuit this weekend, getting in ahead of steamroller Avatar: Way of Water and the year-end deadline for Oscar eligibility. This is a soul-searching, what-lies-ahead moment for a market still much too inconsistent for comfort, but that can be pondered later. At the moment, indie distributors are quite busy
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Sideshow/Janus Films EO held well in week two, grossing $23,217 for the five-day holiday frame ($11,609 per screen) and $16,900 for the three-day weekend ($8,450 per screen). The new cume is $50.7k in a crowded arthouse market, a strong showing for the film starring a melancholic gray donkey. It expands to LA next week opening at
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