UPDATED with Once Upon A Time In Harlem, Musk, more: Netflix‘s Spanish drama La Bola Negra debuted to $277.5k on four screens – these numbers coming directly from the giant streamer Sunday in its first ever official box office grosses.
The TIFF audience award-winner saw $108.3k Friday and $84.6k on Saturday leading into a strong three-day per screen average of $69.4k for the company’s inaugural report.
The film, based on an unfinished play of the same name by Federico García Lorca, launched at the Paris Theater and Angelika in New York, and AMC Century City and Burbank in LA. Netflix is giving the festival favorite a 45-day theatrical window in a new era of box office reporting overseen by global theatrical distribution head Spencer Klein. It will expand in NY/LA and add major markets over the next few weeks ahead of a wider break 11/6.
House records, as per Netflix, reflect the highest opening gross for a non-English language film at the Angelika, The Paris and AMC Century City (excluding dubbed anime) and, more broadly, the second-highest per-screen average for a non-English language film of all time. And the highest per-screen average ever for a Spanish film.
Buzz for the film began at its Cannes world premiere where helmers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi shared Best Director for the R-rated, era-spanning story that went on to beguile the festival circuit. Spain’s Oscar entry for Best International Feature follows the interconnected lives of three gay men.
Netflix gave the film a full theatrical marketing campaign including out-of-home, social, standees, trailers and community screenings, along with bespoke elements. A poetry salon hosted by John Cameron Mitchell and modeled on Lorca’s secret 1930s intellectual gatherings, brought filmmakers and cast together to honor Lorca’s lasting influence on queer art and culture ahead of the NYC premiere last Thursday at NewFest. Marketing will be key for and upcoming titles as the company seeks to draw moviegoers into seats.
The streamer release Guitarricadelafuente’s single from the film, ‘La Nieve,’ (The Snow) on Sept. 18. The musician made his acting debut in the film, which also stars Milo Quifes and Carlos González., with Glenn Close and Penélope Cruz.
Reactions from in-theater audience exit surveys were strong with 96% rating La Bola Negra Excellent or Very Good (80% Excellent), and 87% giving it a Definite Recommend. The film skewed male (66%) and young, with 51% under 35 and 25 to 34 year-olds the largest age group at 39%.
It’s Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh with critics at 87%.
Upcoming Netflix releases set for wider theatrical release and significant windows include The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth by David Fincher; Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew; animated feature Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory: by Taika Waititi; The Mosquito Bowl by Peter Berg and Danny Boyle’s Ink.
Neon had a notable weekend as Once Upon A Time In Harlem eyes $68.3k on two NYC screens opening weekend, a $34k per screen average. Presales and lively walk-up business saw sold-out shows and filmmaker Q&As for this unique project that was 50 years in the making.
Directed by David Greaves, it was started by his father, the late William Greaves, who captured on film a 1972 cocktail party he hosted at Duke Ellington’s house with living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. For four hours, this extraordinary group, many of whom had not seen each other in 50 years, reminisced, critiqued, argued, laughed and drank while wrestling with their place in a rapidly shifting cultural landscape.
The doc world premiered at Sundance and screened at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, Telluride, Toronto and New York Film Festival, where it won the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. At 100% RT Certified Fresh, the doc is Film Forum’s highest opening weekend for any picture this year. Neon adds LA next week with filmmaker Q&As then rolls out regionally with its widest footprint in early- mid November.
The distributor’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Fjord delivered $124.5k in on 13 screens (up from 4) in a limited week two expansion. Moves to 100 runs next week, then to 500 nationally. A strong 91% from RT reviewers, with an 89% audience score.
Bleecker Street’s Alex Gibney doc Musk grossed an estimated $307k in a nationwide expansion across 472 screens for a cume of $395k. RT certified fresh at 97% but the distributor called out repeated issues with major social media platforms. That includes an inability to advertise on giant X, which is owned by Musk, and, this weekend, seeing TikTok, the leading platform for its core audience, permanently suspend the film’s ad account at a critical juncture with the film expanding.
Add to that a nearly four-hour runtime that limits shows, and the turnout from markets all over the country shows an audience is still finding the film. LA, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area are the top markets this weekend, with the Bay Area posting the strongest per-screen average in the country. Specialty and arthouse theaters are playing an outsized role, led by the Angelika in New York, with business spread broadly beyond the two coasts’ largest cities.
Musk also faced off with A24’s insanely buzzy doc You Can See Everything, which had extraordinary weekend gross of $15 million at just 855 locations — one of the largest openings ever for any film under 1,000 screens. Made in secret over three years, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s portrait of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the days before she reported to prison to start a ten-year term for fraud made its surprise world premiere at Telluride and has since become a cultural phenomenon.
NAZA, by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor expanded to 105 engagements (from 85) in week three for an estimated three-day gross of $178k and a $886k cume.
Indian Tamil language action-comedy Jailer 2 from Schloka Entertainment, was no. 9 at the box office with $3.2 million on 401 screens for a cume of $5.3 million. Directed by Nelson Dilipkumar. And Telugu romantic action comedy Ranabaali from Prathyangira Cinemas opened to $719k from 375 theaters. Directed by Rahul Sankrityan. Both as per Rentrak.
Spider horror Crawlers from Roadside Attractions opened to $468k at 1,037 theaters.
EVENT: The Met: Live in HD transmission of Verdi’s Macbeth, the second live performance of the 20th anniversary season of opera on the big screen, grossed $710k ion 800 screens. Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, and starring soprano Lise Davidsen and baritone Quinn Kelsey, it will have encore screenings in select cinemas in the U.S. on Oct. 21 and Canada Nov. 21.