(Interactive chart with estimates below)
Three different premieres led the specialty box office this weekend with each film breaking a 100K weekend gross.
First, Focus Features’ Final Account splashed in at $150K this opening weekend. Over a decade in the making, the timely documentary offers a portrait of the last living generation of everyday people to participate in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. The Luke Holland-directed film raises questions about authority, conformity, complicity, perpetration, national identity, and responsibility, as men and women ranging from former SS members to civilians in never-before-seen interviews reckon with – in very different ways – their memories, perceptions, and personal appraisals of their own roles in the greatest human crimes in history.
Final Account was well-received by critics (90% RT, 74% Metacritic) and minted $488 per screen at 308 locations.
Neon released the drama New Order this weekend to 236 screens. Directed by Michel Franco, the film sees a high-society wedding interrupted by the arrival of unwelcome guests as protests rage on the streets. The Spanish-language movie premiered at Venice Film Festival where it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize.
Scoring mild review scores (67% RT), New Order managed to post a decent $551 per screen average and grossed $130K on opening weekend.
Eric Bana heads IFC Films’ The Dry. The indie crime drama has already made waves in Australia with almost $18 million in box office receipts. The film is based on the best-selling novel by Jane Haper. Genevieve O’Reilly, Keir O’Donnell, John Polson, Sam Corlett and Joe Klocek co-star.
Though The Dry had the least amount of screens in its debut with 186, the Robert Connolly-directed drama made almost $700 per screen with a $129K gross, an impressive feat in a slow time for the limited release box office.