The weekend’s biggest story was the blockbusters, but the small films had their own quiet triumph. A24’s Club Kid earned $390,583 from only six theatres, according to the Monday box-office report — a per-theatre average of more than $65,000, the best of any film in release this weekend by a wide margin.
It is the kind of limited opening that distributors dream about. Six screens, nearly $400,000, and a per-screen figure that dwarfs Godzilla Minus Zero’s $9,714 — the best in the top ten. Club Kid is the latest A24 specialty release to open big in a handful of theatres, and the result gives the distributor every reason to expand it in the coming weeks.
The other small openings
IFC Films’ Mouse took $31,284 from just three theatres, according to Box Office Mojo — a per-screen average above $10,000, and a respectable start for a film opening in the shadow of four wide releases. It is the kind of result that keeps the specialty market alive: small, targeted, and profitable on its own terms.
The faith-based film Jimmy opened wider, in 1,499 theatres, and took $799,741 on Friday, according to Box Office Mojo and The Numbers — good enough for tenth place on the Friday chart. Its full weekend total was $2.2 million, according to Box Office Mojo, keeping it in tenth place overall.
A weekend for every kind of film
The specialty results fit the weekend’s wider pattern. Only two of the top ten films were traditional studio releases, and more than a third of tickets sold were for subtitled films. From a $390,000 six-screen opening to a $31.61 million record for a Japanese monster movie, this was a weekend in which every kind of film found an audience — and the small films, on their own scale, did as well as the big ones.
Related: This Weekend’s Top 10 Was the Most Diverse in Box Office History | Wild Horse Nine Holds Strong With $6M From 1,100 Screens
