Fjord opens quietly as Naza stretches its lead in US indie cinemas
Neon's Cannes top-prize winner Fjord has opened to $124,000 in the United States.
The drama played on four screens in New York and Los Angeles over the weekend ending Sunday, 11 October. The figure is a studio estimate reported ahead of Monday's actuals, according to Deadline.
Fjord stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve and is directed by Cristian Mungiu. It won the Palme d'Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, giving Mungiu his second win in that category and Neon its seventh consecutive win.
The film also took the FIPRESCI Award, a prize voted by international film critics, at Cannes. It is Romania's entry for Best International Feature at the Oscars, and it is rated Certified Fresh, a mark for well-reviewed films, at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The weekend's wider activity came from Naza. The documentary is directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two of the directors behind the Oscar-winning No Other Land. It earned $125,000 in its first eight days at the IFC Center in New York.
It then expanded to 85 engagements in more than 30 markets across the US. It grossed an estimated $298,000 for the three-day weekend and $378,200 for the four-day weekend, taking its cumulative total to $504,074, in studio estimates ahead of Monday's actuals. The US release was organised independently with backing from The Guardian and MK2, and the film is Certified Fresh at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
A24's Misty Green, from Chris Rock, opened in limited release, a launch on a handful of screens before any wider rollout. It played on six screens in New York and Los Angeles for an estimated $85,700 for the three-day weekend and $98,700 for the four-day weekend.
Bleecker Street's Musk documentary, directed by Alex Gibney, grossed an estimated $70,000 over three days on four US screens. That is about $17,200 per screen. The film premiered at Venice and runs for almost four hours.
Elsewhere, California Schemin' from Magenta Light Studios, directed by James McAvoy, opened to an estimated $18,700 at five locations in New York and Los Angeles. Julia Loktev's documentary My Undesirable Friends Part II - Exile opened exclusively at Film Forum in New York with an estimated $7,500 for the weekend.
In holdover business, If I Go Will They Miss Me grossed an estimated $29,600 on 42 US screens in its fifth week. Its cumulative total stands at $980,700.
For audiences outside New York and Los Angeles, this means most of these titles have not yet arrived locally. Small openings followed by gradual expansion are a standard way for independent distributors to test demand city by city.
