Miranda July’s ‘The Future’ leads independent film openings
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While two big-budget blockbusters led the box office this weekend, a handful of less expensively made films also had strong openings.
The independent film marketplace was crowded with more than half a dozen new releases this weekend, and of them, Miranda July’s ‘The Future’ saw the best per-theater results. The film -- directed and written by its often polarizing star July -- collected $28,185 on a single screen at the IFC Center in New York, the only theater where it opened, according to an estimate from distributor Roadside Attractions. The movie, about a couple whose life goals shift after they adopt a cat, opens next weekend in Los Angeles and three other cities.
‘The Guard,’ which like July’s film was also acquired at the Sundance Film Festival in January, also performed well. The film, released by Sony Pictures Classics and about an Irish policeman who is paired with an FBI agent to investigate a drug ring, grossed $80,398 in four theaters for a respectable per-theater average of $20,100.
Meanwhile, Lionsgate’s ‘The Devil’s Double,’ about Saddam Hussein’s son Uday and the man who is his body double, also did decent business. The movie, which features actor Dominic Cooper in dual roles, had a per-theater average of $19,000 and a total of $95,000 from five theaters. Following behind was ‘Attack the Block,’ in which street kids wage a low-tech battle against apelike alien invaders. Sony’s Screen Gems label opened the film, which was received well at SXSW in March and the Los Angeles Film Festival in June, in eight theaters, where it made $130,000 for a per-theater average of $16,250.
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-- Amy Kaufman