While Kevin Spacey’s “Billionaire Boys Club” crashed hard, several other new releases posted solid openings at the indie box office this weekend, with Sony Pictures Classics’ “The Wife” leading the way.
The 2017 TIFF film stars Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce as a Nobel Prize-winning author and his wife, the latter of which begins to slowly resent how her life has become defined by her spouse. It has a 93 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and earned $111,137 from its four-screen L.A./N.Y. opening for a per screen average of $27,784.
In second on the per screen average charts is the Sundance hit “We the Animals,” which was released on three screens by The Orchard. Following three rough-and-tumble boys through their tough childhood, the film earned $66,261 for a PSA of just above $22,000.
Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate’s “Juliet, Naked” and Sundance Selects’ “Blaze” each earned per screen averages of just over $15,000, with “Juliet” opening on four screens, while “Blaze” opened on three screens in Austin. Both films star Ethan Hawke, with “Blaze” also being co-written and directed by the actor.
Among holdovers, Summit/Lionsgate’s “Blindspotting” crossed the $4 million mark with $110,000 in its fifth weekend. A24’s “Eighth Grade” passed $11 million with $740,000 in its sixth weekend.
Finally, as the Summer of the Documentary winds down, NEON’s “Three Identical Strangers” crossed the $10 million mark this past week, with just under $500,000 grossed in its eighth weekend to bring its total to $10.5 million while Focus’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” reached $22 million in its eleventh weekend.