‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ Brings Indie Box Office a Few More Inches of Progress

The long awaited James Cameron sequel to the highest grossing movie of all-time hit tracking this morning with a projected opening of at least $150M. Tracking has it higher near $175M, but rivals are bullish at $200M.

Call it a holiday tradition as common as sweet potatoes on the Thanksgiving table, but Disney is going to rule the five-day holiday stretch again after wins in 2016 (Moana), 2017 (Coco), 2018 (Ralph Breaks the Internet), 2019 (Frozen 2) and last year (Encanto), as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s third weekend looks to do $40M over Wednesday-Sunday and Disney Animation’s Strange World hopes to squeeze out $30M+. All of this occurs as Bob Iger is re-installed as the CEO of Disney and the studio’s distribution czar Kareem Daniel exits.

Luca Guadagnino’s Timothée Chalamet-starring, edgy cannibal road trip romance Bones And All pulled in young demos (79% in the 18-34 rage) and women (54%-46% female) for an opening weekend gross of $120k, or $23.9k per screen average in five theaters. That’s respectable and in line with distributor UAR expectations although below recent debuts including Banshees of Inisherin and Tár last month and The Fabelmans last week, where PSAs all cracked $40k.

“Bones and All” sees Guadagnino reunite with his “Call Me By Your Name” star Timothee Chalamet, who stars alongside newcomer Taylor Russell as a pair of cannibals who fall in love and embark on a tragic road trip across America. The film won Best Director and Best Newcomer honors at Venice and has received praise from critics with an 86% Rotten Tomatoes score, though its likely to remain a niche title as one would expect for a film with such a grisly taboo topic.

Refresh for latest…: In its sophomore frame, Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever sent its worldwide cume well past the $500M mark, with an estimated $546.3M through Sunday.  The split is $288M domestic and $258.3M from the international box office.

When a film as heavily promoted and well-regarded as Universal’s She Said gets body-slammed at the box office, it’s wise to pay attention.

Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever got out to a $10.1M start in  17 international box office markets on Wednesday. This is ahead of continued offshore rollout through Friday and the sequel’s domestic debut on Friday (domestic previews start Thursday). 

Gabriel Byrne’s Broadway solo show Walking With Ghosts will play its final performance on Sunday, November 20, a week shy of a month after its Oct. 27 opening at the Music Box Theatre.

Two of the fall Broadway season’s buzzy new musicals – A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical and Some Like It Hot – began previews last week, both doing solid business in their first, partial weeks.

Despite the presence of New Line’s Black Adam and Universal’s franchise title Halloween Ends at the October box office, the drought we’ve been weathering since the second frame of August with U.S./Canada weekend ticket sales averaging $58M has been stinging to say the least.

To say that Disney/20th Century Studios is betting big on the “Avatar” franchise is an understatement. The original film, though released more than a decade ago, is still the biggest film of all time and has already spawned a huge attraction at one of Disney’s theme parks.

Rock documentary Meet Me In The Bathroom grossed $85,683 in four locations for a per screen average of $21,421 in week one, a milestone for the indie distributor. Two of four screenings were one night only, sold-out events at The Fonda in LA and Webster Hall in NY (live performances by The Moldy Peaches, Adam Green, Wah Together)

EXCLUSIVE: Comic monologist Mike Birbiglia has made an early Broadway splash with his new show The Old Man & the Pool, selling out his first four previews last week – the only other production with all seats filled was The Phantom of the Opera – and, Deadline can report exclusively, getting a two-week extension of his run at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater.

“Till” is sixth on the box office charts after expanding to 2,058 theaters, grossing just $2.8 million for a per-theater average of $1,366 and a running total of $3.6 million. The good news for Chinonye Chukwu’s true-story drama about the murder of Emmett Till is that critical and audience praise has been overwhelming, with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score and an A+ on CinemaScore.

Refresh for latest…: Warner Bros/New Line DC’s Black Adam in its second offshore frame saw a strong hold, down just 45%. It added $39M from 76 offshore markets to take the running international box office total to $139M for a global cume through Sunday of $250M.

Let’s celebrate the heydays of this autumn’s box office where we can, the season greatly hampered by a lack of tentpole product.

Broadway box office held steady last week, with impressive attendance for recent arrivals Almost Famous and Kimberly Akimbo, and Leopoldstadt again setting a house record at the Longacre with receipts of $1,158,051.