James Hetfield (in front of lasers) and his Metallica band mates had the best weekend numbers for a specialty release with “Metallica: Through the Never.”
Credit: Picturehorse
Metallica might seem to exist well outside the specialty movie arena, but their latest film outing — the IMAX 3-D concert movie “Metallica: Through the Never” —technically is an indie. Released by little (although relatively large) distributor Picturehorse into 305 IMAX theaters, it grossed $1,672,075, according to Indiewire. That’s a healthy $5,482 average, and was the highest gross of any new film this weekend that’s not a wide release. The film expands to 650 screens, some not even IMAX, next weekend.
The highest specialty film grosser this weekend overall, though, was “Instructions Not Included,” which added another $3.4 million to its tally. The dramedy is now, with $38.6 million total, the highest ever grossing Spanish-language picture at the American box office, just besting “Pan’s Labyrinth” $37.6 million haul back in 2006. In fact, it is now one of the four highest grossing foreign-language releases ever, joining “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Life is Beautiful” and “Hero.”
More good news arrived for “Enough Said,” Nicole Holofcener’s dramedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, in one of his final screen performances, as middle-age romantics. Expanding from four to 227 theaters, it went from a great small opening weekend to a killer larger one, grossing $2,115,000. It will expand even further next weekend.
In other news, the Robert Reich doc “Inequality for All” — in which the economist guides us through the darker sides of the ever-widening income gap — did a respectable $140,000 gross from 28 theaters, for a $5,000 average.
