After a slow start to the 2014 specialty box office, leave it to Wes Anderson to turn things around in a grand fashion. His “Grand Budapest Hotel” opened in 4 theaters yesterday via Fox Searchlight and Friday numbers suggest it is set to break the live action average record of another Anderson (Paul Thomas, if you couldn’t guess).
“Grand Budapest” — which stars Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody and Jude Law, among many others — grossed a stunning $260,000 on Friday, which made for a $65,000 per-theater-average. That puts the film on track to gross at least $750,000 over the weekend, which would be enough to give it an average around $185,000, more than enough to top the $147,262 that “The Master” averaged in 2012.
“The Master,” oddly enough, beat the record set by Wes Anderson’s previous film “Moonrise Kingdom.” A few months earlier, that film averaged $130,749 from 4 theaters. Which means come Sunday, Wes will have 2 of the top 3 limited live action debuts of all time.
Check back for official estimates come tomorrow.
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