The pace is picking up with studio wide release A Minecraft Movie booming and plenty of indie fare to fill out behind from Neon’s Hell of a Summer and IFC Films’ The Luckiest Man in America to Fathom’s next installment of The Chosen and expansions of The Friend from Bleecker Street and Gkids’ re-release of Princess Mononoke.
CinemaCon, the biggest annual gathering of theater owners and studios, wrapped last night in Las Vegas. Exhibitors’ tempers were strained by a sour first quarter at the box office, and there was an explosion of talk around longer theatrical windows, which for sure will remain an ongoing conversation. That said, Q1 is behind us so here’s to hoping for a sustained period of more movies — many highlighted in Vegas — and higher-grossing movies to lift all boats.
Neon opens Hell of a Summer on 1,255 screens after Thursday previews and early shows took in $215k. The overnight camp-slasher horror comedy by Billy Bryk and Finn Wolfhard follows Jason Hochberg (Fred Hechinger), a 24-year-old counselor who arrives at Camp Pineway thinking his biggest problem is that he feels out of touch with his teenage co-workers. What he doesn’t know is that a masked killer is lurking on the campgrounds, brutally picking off counselors one by one.
Also stars Bryk and Wolfhard as well as Abby Quinn, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Pardis Saremi, Rosebud Baker and Adam Pally.
IFC Films’ The Luckiest Man in America is moderate at 659 theaters. In 1984, a man named Michael Larson (Paul Walter Hauser) appeared on a popular game show called Press Your Luck. Unfortunately for the producers, Michael was about to make history. In trying to beat the system, he created one of the strangest moments on television. Directed by Colombia-born and U.S.-based Samir Oliveros, co-founder of filmmaking collective Plenty Good.
IFC acquired the film out of TIFF last year. See Deadline review, which applauds “another winning weirdo performance” from Hauser. Cast also includes David Strathairn, Shamier Anderson, Walton Goggins, Maisie Williams, Haley Bennett and Johnny Knoxville. Oliveros directed from his script written with Maggie Briggs.
Fathom Entertainment is opening The Chosen: Last Supper – Part 2 on the heels of Part 1 last weekend, which made $14.47 million from Friday-Tuesday wide at 2,000+ theaters. Part 3 (Episodes 6-8) starts next week. Fathom will offer “binge fests” in mid-April so fans can see all three parts.
A Nice Indian Boy by Roshan Sethi (The Resident) from SXSW 2024 hits 80+ theaters this weekend from Blue Harbor Entertainment, expanding through April.
Naveen Gavaskar (Karan Soni) is a self-effacing, soft-spoken doctor with a boisterous mother, seemingly perfect sister, quiet father and a boyfriend (Jonathan Groff). The Gavaskars are outwardly accepting of Naveen’s sexuality but never have had to confront it in practice. When they must, Naveen and Jay’s hard-won love makes each of the Gavaskars face the reality of their own relationships. Through a sweetly woven reconciliation, they come together again to plan Naveen and Jay’s own big, Indian wedding.
Also stars Sunita Mani, Zarna Garg and Harish Patel.
When Fall Is Coming from Music Box Films opens exclusively at Film Forum this week before moving to L.A., Seattle and Portland next. This twisty drama from François Ozon stars acclaimed French stage actress Hélène Vincent as Michelle, a kindly grandmother who nurtures her garden and attends church in a quiet Burgundy village. tranquility. A disdainful daughter, a son recently out of prison and poisonous mushrooms disturb the tranquility. Premiered at TIFF last year and went on to screen at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Performance (Pierre Lottin). Hélène Vincent was nominated for the 2025 César Award for Best Actress for her role.
Gazer from Metrograph Pictures opens at the Angelika Film Center before expanding to L.A. and other regional markets next week. The noir thriller by Ryan J. Sloan premiered at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes last year and was the new indie distributor’s second acquisition there (the first being Good One). Stars Ariella Mastroianni (also the film’s co-writer) as Frankie, a single mother living outside Newark, NJ, and suffering from dyschronometria — a mental condition that makes it difficult to accurately perceive the passage of time. Isolated from her daughter, she takes on a seemingly innocuous heist to find herself tangled in a web of intrigue with wide-reaching implications. Richly atmospheric and shot on 16mm.
Magnolia Pictures debuts Eric LaRue at 23 locations. Directed by Michael Shannon, written by Brett Neveu based on on his play. Stars Judy Greer, Alexander Skarsgaard, Alison Pill, Tracy Letts, Paul Sparks, Annie Parisse. A mother coping with the fallout after her son murders three of his high school classmates. Janice (Greer) is struggling. She moves through life in a haze, unable to let go of her anger and frustration. While her husband (Skarsgård) seeks refuge at a new church, Janice finds solace in faith elusive despite her pastor’s pleas to heal her wounds by meeting with the mothers of her son’s victims. As Janice ponders what that meeting could achieve for her and her community, Eric LaRue asks audiences to witness the frayed emotional ripples that violent acts can engender.
Expansions: Bleecker Street goes wide with The Friend at 1,237 theaters in the U.S. and Canada after a limited release in New York last weekend garnered one of the highest per-screen opening averages of the year. Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel based on the bestselling novel, it stars Naomi Watts and Bill Murray with Ann Dowd, Constance Wu and Bing the Great Dane.
The Friend follows writer and teacher Iris (Watts) as she finds her comfortable, solitary New York life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor (Murray) bequeaths her his beloved 150 lb. Great Dane named Apollo. Premiered at Telluride Film Festival.
Gkids expands to 600 screens with its re-release of Studio Ghibli’s beloved animated Princess Mononoke. The 1997 film by Hayao Miyazaki made $5.36 million in Week 1 exclusively on 330 Imax screens.