Specialty cinemas had a busy frame as a prestige crime comedy, a National Geographic documentary and a Netflix war drama each produced useful data points for film-business planners.
Sony Pictures Classics’ The Only Living Pickpocket in New York expanded from six to 1,112 screens in its second week and grossed more than $1.9 million over the weekend, lifting its total to an estimated $2.1 million. The John Turturro film, directed by Noah Segan, carries a 97% Certified Fresh critics score and a 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Turturro picked up a Gotham Award nomination last week, after winning the Golden Eye Award at the Zurich Film Festival in September.
Why the expansion matters
The jump is a case study in platform releasing: start small, collect critical and awards validation, then widen quickly when audience demand is visible. The film didn’t need a wide opening to reach the top 10; it needed a credible limited run and a strong second-week push. For media planners, that changes the timing of partnership and promotion decisions around indie titles.
Everest: The Other Side, the National Geographic documentary from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, opened to $1 million at 515 locations. Imax represented $825,000 of that total. The filmmakers also created a marketing moment by climbing and rappelling down a 12-story building on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood on Friday evening.
Netflix adds another data point
Peter Berg’s World War II drama The Mosquito Bowl opened to $455,000 on 349 screens. Deadline reports it is Netflix’s second film released under a new regime of box office reporting for selected projects. That is a meaningful signal for the market: the streamer is choosing when to make theatrical performance public, usually around titles with an awards path. Netflix’s La Bola Negra added $418,000 in its third week for a $1.2 million cume.
Other specialty numbers worth noting
- Aadarsha Kutumbam House No: 47 opened to $1.1 million at 400 locations; Sight & Sound Presents: JOSHUA Live! took $758,000 on 1,230 screens; Christmas at the Kringles opened to $675,000 at 1,825 locations; Liam Neeson’s The Mongoose opened to $480,000 on 1,014 screens.
- Limited releases: Fatherland added $122,000 at 45 theaters for a $250,500 cume; Once Upon A Time In Harlem took $91,000 on 15 screens for a $273,000 cume; and Queen At Sea opened to $10,000 at the Angelika Film Center in New York.
- Holdovers: A24’s You Can See Everything passed $63 million after a $10 million-plus third weekend; Wildwood is tracking toward a $7-8 million second weekend and beyond $25 million; Wicker held at $4.1 million in week two, down 28%, for a $13.3 million cume; Sense & Sensibility added $1.4 million for $16.8 million.
What to do with the data
For media planners and entertainment marketers, the weekend’s lesson is that second-week holds, cumes and premium-format share often reveal more than opening grosses. A niche title can look tiny on opening day and still become a marketing vehicle after awards nominations and word-of-mouth kick in. Watch Netflix’s selective box-office reports as an early indicator of which streaming films are being positioned as awards contenders.
Source: Deadline
