Specialty box office is ready for liftoff.
With Los Angeles and New York completely peeling back restrictions on theater capacity for the first weekend, we are starting to see rays of hope illuminate the limited release space. Meet The Blacks 2 blasted expectations last week by posting a $1M+ debut (per screen average of $2,533). Just two days later, Bố Già crossed the million-dollar mark on 38 screens, the widest theater count for any Vietnam film in the domestic market.
This week, The Sparks Brothers, the documentary debut of director Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz), took its turn electrifying the arthouse space.
The Sparks Brothers details the five-decade journey of the influential but often overlooked group that you might say is your favorite band’s favorite band, still drawing influential crowds to their shows. The pic, born out of Wright’s first encounter with Sparks as a kid watching them on UK show Top of the Pops, features interviews with the L.A. duo as well as fans Flea, Beck, Jack Antonoff, Jason Schwartzman, Neil Gaiman and others.
From MRC Non-Fiction, the film made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this year, notching a 96% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
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The Sparks Brothers grossed $265K this Father’s Day weekend on 534 screens ($489 per screen average), huge numbers for any documentary debut these days.
The strongest performing markets for the pop-rock doc were Los Angeles (with 18% of the gross in 48 theaters), New York, San Francisco, Austin and Chicago.
Meet The Blacks 2, the comedy/horror romp from writer-director Deon Taylor, carried much of its momentum from the debut last week.
After widening its release to 539 theaters this week (up from 420 screens), the Mike Epps-starring film is on track to gross $604K with a per screen average of $1,121. Though the Meet The Blacks sequel suffered a steep 40% gross drop-off from last week’s premiere, the vampire comedy easily crossed the $2M mark this week with much more to add to their piggy bank in coming weeks.