The Farewell has a stunning opening weekend!

What did you see this weekend?

Weekend Box Office Estimates July 12th-14th   🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Highly Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
Spider-Man: Far From Home	The Farewell
1 Spider-Man Far From Home  $45.3 (cum. $274.5) on 4634 screens  TOM HOLLAND, REVIEW	1 🔺 Super 30 $923k new on 317 screens
2 Toy Story 4 $20.6 (cum. $346.3) on 4210 screens PODCAST, REVIEW	2  Last Black Man in... $361k (cum. $3.3) on 207 screens REVIEW, PODCAST, BEST OF ★
3 🔺 Crawl $12 new on 3170 screens REVIEW	3 🔺 The Farewell $351k new on 4 screens REVIEW, INTERVIEW ★
4 🔺 Stuber $8 new on 3050 screens REVIEW	4 🔺 Wild Rose $294k (cum. $751k) on 161 screens PODCAST, SOUNDTRACKING
5 Yesterday $6.7 (cum. $48.3) on 2755 screens	5  Pavarotti $255k (cum. $3.5) on 196 screeens
6 Aladdin $5.8 (cum. $331.4) on 2557 screens  REVIEW, 1992 RETRO	6 🔺 Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable $250k new on 205 screens
6 Anabelle Comes Home $5.5 (cum. $60.7) on 3209 screens	7 🔺 Maiden $224k (cum. $484k) on 68 screens  REVIEW ★

numbers on that chart are pulled from boxofficemojo

The weekend was very kind to Far From Home which is outpacing its predecessor and is already the 3rd highest grossing Spidey worldwide behind Spider-Man 3 (2007) and Homecoming (2017)... for now at least. The new wide releases performed around expectations. Crawl did solid business (especially given that it's budget is a low $13 million) but Stuber struggled

The best news is that it was a huge weekend for Lulu Wang's awards-hopeful The Farewell, which earned the highest opening per screen average of the year so far ($87,833 per theater). The film expands from NY and LA to other top markets next week and goes wide on August 2nd. That's quicker than we were expecting but the numbers are strong. That's good news for cinephiles since any success for artful indies is to be celebrated in this tough theatrical market.

New this weekend: "The Farewell" and "The Art of Self Defense"

The alligator thriller Crawl and the buddy comedy Stuber are the new wide releases this weekend but let us now direct your attention to the new films in limited release today, as we reviewed both during their festival runs...

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What did you see this weekend?

Weekend Box Office Estimates May 3rd-5th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = New or Expanded Theater Count
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES 800 screens or less
Long Shot	El Chicano
1 Avengers: Endgame  $145.8 (cum. $619.6)	1🔺 El Chicano  $700k on 605 screens *NEW*
2 🔺 The Intruder $11 *NEW*	2 🔺 Amazing Grace $367k on 263 screens (cum. $2.7)
3 🔺 Long Shot  $10 *NEW* REVIEW	3 🔺 Red Joan $253k on 139 screens (cum. $527k) DAME JUDI
4 🔺 Uglydolls  $8.5 *NEW*	4 The Mustang  $151k on 229 screens (cum. $4.8)
5 Captain Marvel $4.2 (cum. $420.7) REVIEW	5 🔺 The White Crow $98k on 19 screens (cum. $210k)

Though they didn't hit the top five among limited releases both Olivier Assayas's Non-Fiction and Zhang Yimou's Shadow opened with decent per screen averages in very limited release so expect them to expand a bit soon. Meanwhile Claire Denis's High Life just crossed the million dollar mark making it her biggest hit in the US since Chocolate back in 1989. 

Avengers Endgame is already the 2nd biggest film of all time globally (not adjusted for inflation) having beaten Titanic's total gross this weekend by just a single million at this writing. Only Avatar remains to be conquered. 

"Endgame" breaks all the records. Is counterprogramming dead?

What did you see over the weekend? Or perhaps we should ask "Were you part of the record 1.2 billion global haul of Avengers Endgame?" Yes, we're living in the capitalist end times when one corporation (Disney) will soon control the entire world. Or 50% of showbusiness soon. With that in mind let's look at everything in wide release (that's only 13 films and just barely that with Endgame on 4661 screens) and their limited/platform counterparts... 

Weekend Box Office (Actuals) April 26th-28th  🔺 = new or expanded theater counts
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 🔺 Avengers Endgame $357.1 on 4662 screens *NEW*	1 🔺 Amazing Grace $519k on 245 screens (cum. $2.1)

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Oscar Rule Changes. It's about time with the Makeup & Hair, Academy

They finally listened! Or, rather...

We are now allowing ourselves to freely fantasize that our annual griping here at TFE for the past forever years that Makeup and Hair deserves as many nominations as any other filmmaking craft, planted the seeds that eventually led to discussions on the other coast. The Academy announced that there will be five nominees going forward in the category starting this next season. (We've already adjusted this year's April Foolish Prediction Chart). Should we go power-mad, loyal readers??

Alas, nope.  The other rule change we've requested for a long time, didn't happen...

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