‘The Piano Lesson’, ‘Leopoldstadt’ Lead Broadway Newcomers At Box Office

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Comedy action film “Confidential Assignment 2: International” claimed its fifth successive weekend victory at the South Korean box office as only U.S. horror film “Smile” was able to break into the top five.The CJ Entertainment-distributed “Confidential Assignment 2” managed $1.64 million over the Friday to Sunday period, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). That represented a 27% share of the market. “Confidential Assignment 2” recorded a 27% weekend on weekend decline. That pushed its cumulative total to $47 million, earned form $6.52 million ticket sales since release on Set. 7, 2022.

Focus Features’Tár opened in limited release to strong results with $160,000 at four locations in New York and Los Angles for a $40,000 per theater average, one of the best PTAs since Covid and not bad for a 2-hour and 38-minute arthouse film pre-pandemic.

After a pandemic recovery year in which Focus has started many of its releases with larger theater counts, “Tár” is starting with a return to the traditional four-screen launch in New York and Los Angeles, earning $160,000 for a per-theater average of $40,000. With the LA theaters that first got platform releases, the Arclight Hollywood and Landmark Pico, both now closed, Focus has turned to the AMC locations in Century City and the Grove on Fairfax to release “Tár,” while releasing it at the Angelika and AMC Lincoln Square in New York.

Paramount’s Smile is positively grinning ear-to-ear as the horror pic from director Parker Finn saw a wild 19% upswing in holdovers at the international box office in its second frame. The weekend gross was $17.5M in 61 markets for a $40M offshore cume and $89.9M global to date.

Universal/Working Title’s Ticket to Paradise, the latest big-screen collaboration for Julia Roberts and George Clooney, has led the duo to a new milestone. Five films in which the mega-stars worked together have now grossed a combined $1B at the global box office. 

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Ticket to Paradise,” a romantic comedy that reunites Julia Roberts and George Clooney, is (surprise, surprise) charming audiences at the international box office. The movie has generated $60 million overseas to date, a promising start given the current challenges facing theatrical rom-coms. Of course, it helps when the genre gets a boost from megawatt stars like Roberts and Clooney. According to Universal, which is backing the film, “Ticket to Paradise” is outpacing recent meet-cute stories like “The Lost City,” “Last Christmas” and “Crazy Rich Asians” at the same point in their respective big-screen rollouts. Over the weekend, “Ticket to Paradise” earned $10.5 million from 61 territories, including debuts in France ($1 million), Mexico ($1 million) and Italy ($800,000). In holdover markets, “Ticket to Paradise,” which features Clooney and Roberts as exes who try to stop their daughter from marrying a near stranger, has been popular in Australia ($8.5 million), the United Kingdom and Ireland ($7.4 million) and Germany ($7.4 million). It opens Oct. 21 in the U.S. and Canada.

Jordan Moreau “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” is slowly getting ready to take a bite out of the weekend box office. It earned $575,000 from 3,453 theaters in Thursday previews, while David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam” picked up $550,000 million from 3,005 theaters. Sony’s live-action/CGI hybrid, co-financed by TSG, is a family-friendly movie about a singing crocodile, starring Grammy-nominated artist Shawn Mendes as the titular reptile. The studio projects an opening haul of $11 million to $12 million, with some projections belting out upwards of $15 million. With a budget of $50 million, it will need plenty of support from kids and families over the fall to snap up a profit. The cast includes Javier Bardem as Hector P. Valenti, Lyle’s flamboyant owner, Brett Gelman as Mr. Grumps and Constance Wu, Scoot McNairy and Winslow Fegley as the Primm family. The Primms move to a new house in New York City, where they discover Lyle, a saltwater crocodile with the voice of a high-end recording artist, living in their attic.

Sony Pictures’ Where the Crawdads Sing has crossed the $90 million mark at the domestic box office, showing proof that it’s not just tentpoles that rule the roost on the big screen. The pic hit the mark on its 82nd day of release, Tuesday, after opening on July 15.

Broadway held fairly steady at the box office last week, with recent arrivals Leopoldstadt and The Piano Lesson leading the pack of fall newcomers with grosses of $758,988 and $704,051, respectively.

Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman have had a Pulp Fiction reunion backstage on Broadway.The actors, who played Jules Winnfield and Mia Wallace respectively in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film alongside John Travolta, met up last Saturday (October 1) at the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.The play is currently being performed in previews at the Barrymore Theatre in New York.

Billy Eichner’s Universal-backed comedy “Bros” flopped at the box office during its opening weekend with a $4.8 million bow, about half of the $8 million to $10 million that the studio projected. Eichner, in a now viral tweet, claimed that straight people not showing up to an LGBTQ comedy was a driving force behind “Bros” underperformance. “Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore, etc., straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for ‘Bros,'” Eichner wrote. “And that’s disappointing but it is what it is.” Eichner is certainly correct that some straight moviegoers weren’t interested in the material, while homophobia about two men falling in love also likely figured in. During a recent trip to a multiplex in Georgia, for instance, this writer saw a group of men being openly homophobic by mocking the “Bros” poster for featuring a guy putting his hand on another guy’s butt. However, the $4.8 million opening for “Bros” is so low that it also means many LGBTQ viewers didn’t show up to see the comedy in theaters either. So why did “Bros” disappoint?

Sarigama Cinemas’ Ponniyin Selvan: Part One crashed the weekend box office at no. 6, looking at $4+ million on 500 screens for a per theater average of $8,260, the biggest of the top ten.

It was a varied offering at the international box office this weekend with newcomers from Hollywood and offshore markets, as well as notable holds, as we inch closer to full-on action later in October. 

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Hold onto your bucket hats: Sony’s action-thriller “Bullet Train” crossed $100 million at the domestic box office. It’s an impressive milestone (in post-COVID times) for an original movie that doesn’t involve marquee comic book heroes or intergalactic adventures. It helps, of course, that a bankable actor like Brad Pitt stars in the film, as a heavily therapized assassin named Ladybug. “Bullet Train” reached $101 million in domestic ticket sales on Friday, making it only the 14th release this year to hit that benchmark. With another $130 million at the international box office, the film has now earned $231 million in global ticket sales to date.

Paramount’s horror movie Smile struck up $2M in Thursday night previews that started at 7 p.m., a figure that’s just above M. Night Shyamalan’s Old from summer 2021, which did $1.5M in its previews, and just under Universal/Blumhouse’s Black Phone Thursday previews which were $3M in June.

Naman Ramachandran Universal’s ‘Ticket to Paradise,’ starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney, and Warner Bros.’ “Don’t Worry Darling,” with Florence Pugh, Harry Styles and Chris Pine, were in a close tussle at the U.K. and Ireland box office, with the former winning narrowly. “Ticket to Paradise” collected £2.8 million ($3.03 million) to top the box office, edging “Don’t Worry Darling,” which took £2.7 million ($2.99 million) to second place, according to numbers released by Comscore. Disney’s “Avatar” rerelease placed third with £1.2 million. After two weeks atop the box office, Disney’s “See How They Run” dropped to fourth position in its third weekend with £473,222 for a total of £3.6 million.

"Don't Worry Darling" did not disappoint at the box office, darling. Olivia Wilde's sophomore release earned $19.2 million domestically, nabbing the top spot across theatrical releases nationwide.

Forty members of the crew and production team on Olivia Wilde’s new movie Don’t Worry Darling have spoken out to dispute “the absurd gossip” surrounding alleged on-set unrest during the production of the New Line Cinema pic starring Harry Styles, Olivia Pugh and Chris Pine.