Limited-Release Lowdown: ‘Ip Man 3’ rakes in the dough, ‘Anomalisa’ reaches a milestone

We obviously love movies on this blog, but so much of our focus in terms of reviews and box office reports thus far has been on wide releases — and those get all of everyone’s attention in general anyway. Part of being a cinephile is providing a voice of support to the tiny films that need all the love we can give them in order to survive the marketplace. So, beginning this week, after looking at the weekend’s box office results, we’ll also give you an occasional Limited-Release Lowdown, taking a closer look to see how the specialty releases are doing. Wide release is generally understood to mean at least 600 theatres, so we’ll focus specifically on those titles that have never screened in wide release.

The list looks definitively different than it has in weeks past, owing to the recent expansions of Carol, Room, and The Danish Girl. But that gives us an opportunity to cast a light on other less-heralded titles.

Among all limited releases this weekend, the biggest story was Ip Man 3. The Hong Kong martial arts film from director Wilson Yip was an enormous success by any metric — it ended the week in the overall Top 20 and boasted the week’s highest per-screen average. I’m not familiar with this franchise at all, but this one features Mike Tyson in its cast. Oh.

At #2 was Anomalisa, the stop-motion animated film from Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche, New York) and Duke Johnson, which is nominated for Best Animated Feature at next month’s Oscars. Starring the voices of David Thewlis and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the film is about an author who is crippled by the mundanity of his life. Kaufman’s films are always eccentric and certainly not populist — he previously wrote the screenplays for Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — but his mere involvement makes any project must-see. He is simply one of the most imaginative writers we’ve got. I haven’t had a chance to see this yet, but it’s long been among my most-anticipated films of the year. And it’s been doing very solid business so far; this week, it crossed $1 million.

Coming in at #3 was The Lady in the Van, in which Dame Maggie Smith recreates her award-winning London stage role of a homeless elderly woman who spends 15 years living in a van in playwright Alan Bennett’s driveway. The pedigree is tasty on this one — the creative team previously gave us The Madness of King George and The History Boys, and of course everybody loves Maggie Smith. (Right?) Smith was nominated for a Golden Globe for this film, and yet somehow the film has still barely been released. Perhaps its very solid per-screen average will help it expand onto more screens.

The British marriage drama 45 Years finished the weekend at #4 among limited releases. Starring veteran actors Charlotte Rampling (who is currently nominated for Best Actress for this film) and Tom Courtenay as a couple whose marriage is crumbling after the titular length of time, the film comes from Andrew Haigh (who brought us the exquisite gay drama Weekend and HBO’s Looking). So far, I have adored everything that Haigh has touched, so I have very high hopes for this one as well.

Rounding out the Top 5 limited releases this week is the Hungarian Holocaust drama Son of Saul, currently the frontrunner to win Best Foreign Language Film. From first-time filmmaker László Nemes, the film tells the story of a prisoner at Auschwitz who becomes obsessed with burying the body of a young boy he finds. The film has inspired a lot of discussion about its audacious filmmaking choices — most of the running time is reportedly spent in tight close-up on star Géza Röhrig’s face, telling the story largely through the actor’s reactions to what he’s experiencing.

Includes only titles that have never screened in wide release.

Source: Box Office Mojo

Have you seen any of these films? Share your thoughts in the comments below.