Two wide indie openers lead four-film weekend on 25 September
Four independent films reach US cinemas on 25 September, with two going wide on hundreds of screens and two starting small.
The broadest push comes from Sony Pictures Classics with Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, which opened on more than 500 screens nationwide, according to Deadline. The Tokyo-set comedy-drama premiered at Sundance, where it took the Directing Award. Josef Kubota Wladyka directed the film.
Rinko Kikuchi stars as Haru. Sony Pictures Classics acquired worldwide rights to the film in February, according to the studio. The film holds a Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh rating of 89%, according to Deadline.
Close behind on scale is The Stunt Driver from Independent Film Company, which opened on 670 screens, according to Deadline. It is a comedic biopic set in the 1970s and directed by Michael Dowse, who also wrote the film. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, known as TIFF.
Jay Baruchel stars as daredevil Ken Carter, alongside Ed Helms and Ben Foster. The story follows Carter's attempt to make a mile-long rocket-car jump across the St. Lawrence River from Canada to the US. Independent Film Company had set 25 September as the US theatrical release date.
Quiver Distribution is taking a different path with Long Day's Journey Into Night. The film opened at the Lumiere Cinema in Los Angeles for an Academy run, a short qualifying engagement that makes a film eligible for awards consideration, according to Deadline.
It stars Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, Ben Foster and Colin Morgan. The film is the feature directorial debut of Jonathan Kent. Set on a single day in August 1912, it centres on the Tyrone family at their seaside home in Connecticut.
The fourth arrival is Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother from Amazon MGM Studios. It opened in limited release, meaning a handful of cinemas to start, at six theatres in New York and Los Angeles, according to Deadline. It premiered at TIFF.
The film was written and directed by Bassam Tariq. Mahershala Ali stars as Latif, a devoutly religious hitman. Ali had said by July that his long-planned Blade film was dead in the water after an extended period in development, according to Variety.
What makes this stand out is the spread of release tactics in a single weekend. Two distributors are chasing a national audience at once. Two others are starting with one city or a few screens.
