More Neon Love As ‘Babes’ Blasts Off Stateside – Specialty Box Office

Jill Goldsmith
·3 min read

As Neon was justly feted this weekend for a fifth consecutive Cannes Palme d’Or winner (Anora), it also had a nice showing at home with a terrific expansion for indie Babes.

The feature directorial debut of Pamela Adlon jumped from a 12-screen opening last week to 590 and hit no. 9 at the domestic box office with an estimated $1.06 million three-day weekend and cume of circa $1.29 million. Over the four days, including the Memorial Day holiday, the gross approaches $1.23 million and the cume $1.46 million.

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The film follows inseparable childhood best friends Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau) who grew up together in NYC but are now firmly in different phases of adulthood. When carefree and single Eden decides to have a baby on her own after a one-night stand, their complex friendship faces its greatest challenge. Co-written by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz.

Noting that Neon’s La Chimera, Alice Rohrwacher’s eccentric Italian fable about Etruscan grave robbers from Cannes 2023 is at $822k in week 8 on 20 screens. It stars Josh O’Connor (Challengers).

The other indie that’s had some real legs in May is A24’s I Saw The TV Glow, which is seeing estimated $514k for the three-day and $642k for the four-day holiday weekend on 458 screens. Thats about the same number as last week, when it grossed about $1 million. The 1990s-set queer coming of age film by Jane Schoenbrun now has a cume near $2.79 million in week four. (The distributor’s very successful Civil War by Alex Garland is still pulling in theaters with $306k on 451 screens for a $68.1 million cume.)

New openings: Not many numbers in yet but Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara topped $14k in two NYC theaters for the three days and about $18k for the four days as it starts its run. The film, which premiered in Cannes a year ago, has an 86% with RT critics and solid word of mouth from its festival run, which also included TIFF and NYFF among others. Ads LA and the other top ten markets next week in 20-25 theaters before expanding nationwide June 7.

The historical drama begins in 1858 in the Jewish quarter of Bologna when the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family and abduct their six-year-old son Edgardo. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby, although the details are dubious, and papal law required him to receive a Catholic education. The case became an international scandal but Pope Pius IX refused to release the boy.

Other holdovers: In its fourth weekend, Sideshow/Janus Films’ release of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist grossed an estimated $100.9k on 138 screens for the three-day weekend and $123.9k for the four, with a cume of $535k+.

Ethan Hawke-directed Wildcat from Oscilloscope took in an estimated $79+k over three days and $100.7k over four. The Flannery O’Conner biopic has a cume of about $385k in week 4.

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