Box Office: “Away We” Goes High; Big Beach, Endgame Having Great ‘09 (UPDATED)

A scene from Sam Mendes's "Away We Go." Image courtesy of Focus Features.

Big Beach Films is having a big year.  Their latest production, Sam Mendes’s “Away We Go,” opened this weekend to a massive $143,260 on just four screens, according to estimates from Rentrak earlier this afternoon. That made for a $35,815 per-theater-average for the Focus Features-distributed film, the year’s second best behind another Big Beach production - Christine Jeff’s “Sunshine Cleaning.”

“‘Away We Go’’ has established itself in the marketplace with a successful opening weekend, measured by the strong overall weekend box office, with impressive results in every theater,” Focus’ Jack Foley told indieWIRE. “The strong Friday and Saturday box office results reflect sell out conditions arising in every theater especially during the evening shows. Matinee and early evening business was also very strong with the older ticket buyer. Clearly, the film is playing effectively to a mixed age demo which is great for the ultimate box office potential.”

While “Away” has a way to go to match “Cleaning”‘s ultimate gross - $11,772,061 and counting - it’s opening certainly suggests the road trip dramedy could find itself among the summer’s specialty release bright spots as it expands in the coming weeks. It opens in 16 markets this Friday and also expand to select theaters in NY and LA.

Though it’s not a hit in the vein of “Sunshine” and, likely, “Away We Go,” another Big Beach effort - John Crowley’s “Is Anybody There?” - has also performed well beyond expectations and continues to chug along under the radar.  After 8 weeks, the Michael Caine starrer - distributed independently through Story Island Entertainment - has grossed $1,877,064 after adding another $66,067 this weekend. That makes it one of the problematically few 2009 limited releases to cross the $1,000,000 mark.  At this point only nine initially limited 2009 releases have done so (last year at this point the number was over three times that): “Anybody,” “Cleaning,” “The Brothers Bloom,” “Two Lovers,” “Sin Nombre,” “Rudo y Cursi,” “Valentino: The Last Emperor,” “Gomorrah,” and “Every Little Step” that saw their With “Away We Go” certain to join them within a week or two, Big Beach will have a disproportionately high number of inclusions on that list (though of note: there were also many 2008 holdovers that saw the great majority of their release in 2009 that crossed the $1 million mark, including IFC’s “Gomorrah” and “Che,” and Sony Classics’ “The Class” and “Waltz With Bashir”).

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But Big Beach is not alone in its box office glory. With “Chorus Line” doc “Every Little Step” crossing the $1,000,000 mark this weekend, Jim Stern and Endgame Entertainment also have two films on that list, with a third on the way.  “Step,” which Stern also directed alongside Adam Del Deo, lost 3 screens this weekend but only 19% of its gross, taking in $101,000 from 54 screens and bringing its cume to $1,077,000 after eight weeks. That makes the Sony Pictures Classics release only $100,000 or so away from the year’s biggest specialty division doc, “Valentino” (though that film is also continuing to do great business, falling just 15% this weekend despite losing screens). Endgame’s other million dollar baby is Rian Johnson’s “The Brothers Bloom,” which has cumed $2,037,941 in just four weeks.  The caper comedy - released by Summit - grossed $425,000 this weekend, from 173 screens.  Though while its $2,457 average remains respectable, the film is showing signs of slowing down. It lost 32% of its gross this weekend, despite adding 25 screens. Holding up better was “Easy Virtue,” another Endgame production, which added 20 screens and saw its gross grow 32%. The Stephan Elliott period film, released by Sony Pictures Classics, grossed another $219,000, averaging $4,761 and taking its total to $628,000.   (1 of 2)  Next Page › posted on June 7, 2009 |Share