Following “Moonlight’s” Best Picture win at the 89th Academy Awards on Sunday, A24 is expanding the film to 1,500-plus theaters this coming weekend.
The film has grossed an estimated $22 million since its debut in October, and played in 585 theaters last weekend where it saw a 9.3 percent increase in revenue. 1,500 theaters will be its biggest screen count to date. On the weekend of Jan. 27, following the film’s eight Academy Award nominations, the film played in 1,104 theaters.
It’s also a bigger jump than “Spotlight’ and “Birdman” saw when they won Best Picture the past two years. Those films expanded to 1,227 and 1,213 theaters, respectively. This weekend’s theatrical expansion of “Moonlight” also comes on the day of its release on DVD and Blu-ray.
Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Janelle Monae, Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders and Alex R. Hibbert star in the film.
On Sunday, “La La Land” was erroneously named Best Picture by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. When the three producers were concluding their acceptance speeches, there was a commotion on stage until Jordan Horowitz told audiences that “Moonlight” had actually won Best Picture, and the wrong envelope had been given to the presenters.
“This is not a joke. ‘Moonlight’ has won best picture,” said Horowitz.
The drama also scored Oscars for Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali as well as Best Writing Adapted Screenplay for Jenkins.