of SS Rajamouli RRRa huge hit when it opened in March, returns to the US market in a novel and, so far, a successful bid from distributors to expand the reach of the Telugu period drama beyond traditional Indian film audiences.
Originally released on March 24 across 1,000 screens, wide for an Indian release in the United States, RRR (To go up! Roar! Revolt!) has grossed over $14 million in North America and over $140 million worldwide. In India, the epic story of two friends who discover they are on opposite sides of India’s struggle for independence (Deadline review here), broke records to set the best day ever. opening of a local movie. It was director Rajamouli at the top of his former record holder in the market, in 2017 Baahubali 2: the conclusion. See Rajamouli’s interview.
Indian films are a staple of the American box office, but rarely stay longer than a week. All connoisseurs rush to see them immediately and then the theaters make room for the next arrival. They are also the only foreign language and specialty dishes not playing in art house cinemas.
It made it unusual when Variance Films and Potentate Films, in association with Sarigama Cinemas and Rafter Creations, re-released RRR on June 1 for one-night screenings at 123 theaters across the country, including arthouse chains. Presales were good, so they added additional races last weekend in New York and Los Angeles (IFC Center and Glendale, a one-week race) and weekend shows at Alamo Drafthouse Austin.
The re-release grossed $12.9,000 this week across four screens for a pre-weekend gross of $80,374. About 90-95% of the audience was non-Indian.
It extends to full screen this weekend at IFC and Laemmle Glendale. In New York, it adds BAM Rose Cinema (one week duration); Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn (weekend shows); Nitehawk Williamsburg (weekday show); and Nitehawk Prospect Park (weekday show). In Los Angeles, it extends to Laemmle Noho (week-long broadcast) and Alamo Drafthouse DTLA (weekend broadcasts). It adds Alamo Drafthouse Mueller in Austin (weekend shows) as well as the Belcourt Theater in Nashville (weekend shows) and the Roxie Film Center in San Francisco (weekday shows).
“It’s pure spectacle,” says Jake Isgar, film programmer for Alamo Drafthouse. “There has been so much written about what will bring people back to cinema. Give them a show, and that’s exactly what this movie does a thousand times over.
He said the channel’s screening in San Francisco had ten applause breaks.
And RRR has been on Netflix for two weeks.
“People come to experience it,” said Dylan Marchetti of Variance Films. “It’s three hours of joy at the cinema.” The group will be adding select shows from #encoRRRe throughout the summer.
With over 250 films coming out of India every year, RRR could be a “gateway drug”, he joked. “I wish there was a pattern here. There are a lot of people – programmers, bookers, industry people – who were only marginally aware of Telegu/South Indian cinema. There will be more movies like this that can crossover.He declined to name a next nominee, but noted that VikramName, for example, opened last weekend at no. 7 in North America ($1.78M across 460 sites).
Elsewhere in the specialty, Music Box Films presents lost illusions in New York (Film Forum, Film Society of Lincoln Center) and LA (Laemmle Royal, Town Center, Playhouse and Claremont). Xavier Giannoli’s adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s classic novel stars Benjamin Voisin, Xavier Dolan and Gérard Depardieu. Lucien (Voisin) is a budding young poet in 19th-century France who leaves his family’s provincial printing press to try his luck in Paris, but soon discovers that the arts have a dark side ruled by profit and pretension. Music Box’s theatrical sales manager Kyle Westphal called the film, which premiered in Venice, “a 19th-century story that felt utterly contemporary, a scabrous satire for TMZ’s era. and Gawker”. See Deadline revision.
“We waited until the summer, both because public confidence is up and because lost illusions is the ideal counter-programming. There are many people who want to see Jurassic World Dominion this weekend, but also many who feel totally alienated from CGI blockbusters and want a different kind of cinematic experience.
Last week, a number of specialty openings slipped between Top Gun: Maverick and jurassic world. Fewer have tried it this week.
Shudder and IFC Midnight present Phil Tippett’s long-gestating stop-motion thriller crazy god in NY and LA, expanding next week. Tippett began crafting and animating a dark, surreal world of creatures and nightmares in 1987, produced dozens of environments and hundreds of puppets for the project, filling notebook after notebook with thousands of detailed sketches and storyboards. . Volunteers and a hugely successful KickStarter campaign helped him revive the project decades later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jas8OABBn0Y
IFC Midnight also continues with Observerits most successful theatrical releases ever, reaching 656 theaters in week 2.
Tricycle Logic presents the first feature film by Lebanese director Oualid Mouaness, 1982. The coming-of-age drama that premiered at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival (winning the NETPAC award) opens at the Quad Cinema in New York, rolling out to Los Angeles on June 24 and across nationwide throughout the summer. The New York date coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Lebanon War. The story takes place in an idyllic school in the mountains of Lebanon on the eve of an impending invasion. It takes place over a single day as an 11-year-old boy seeks to profess his love to a girl in his class. Selection of Lebanon for the 92nd Academy Awards. Utopia had released the film digitally during Covid.
History will not die de Rae Film by David Henry Gerson looks at a young generation of Syrian artists who are using their work to protest and address the world’s largest ongoing displacement of people since World War II. Produced by Odessa Rae (Navalny). Doc features rapper Abu Hajar, post-rock musician Anas Maghrebi, members of Syria’s first all-female rock band, a break dancer, choreographer and visual artists who use their art to rise up in the revolution in exile. Opens in NY this weekend, LA next. Digital on June 21 (World Refugee Day).
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