Bill Murray's “St. Vincent” makes solid debut at specialty box office

Bill Murray's “St. Vincent” makes solid debut at specialty box office

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Weinstein Company opened St. Vincent on a traditional platform and it appears to have reaped rewards from that old-school approach with a solid debut in a very crowded box office weekend for limited releases, Deadline said.

The film by Theodore Melfi grossed over $121K in four New York and L.A. theaters this weekend after opening the Hamptons International Film Festival. For the weekend, the Bill Murray comedy averaged more than $30K and boasts the weekend’s highest per-theater average. The film led a huge pack of new openers that included festival heavy-hitters such as Sundance winners Whiplash and documentary The Overnighters as well as the faith-centered Meet The Mormons and Christian Mingle The Movie.

TWC said that St. Vincent had a 67% jump from Friday, Oct 10 to Saturday. TWC picked up the film in the script stage for a reported $13 million. Heading into the weekend, the company said it was capitalizing on word of mouth and traditional ad buys to pique audience interest.

TWC plans to take St. Vincent to the top 25 markets next week and to go wide Oct. 24.

Whiplash won the Audience prize and a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance earlier this year. This weekend, it arrived in theaters after screening at the New York Film Festival. The film has won critical praise and had a solid bow in six theaters with a $143,503 gross, averaging $23,917.

“It’s a movie that will really grow,” said SPC co-president Michael Barker on Sunday. “It’s like so many of our films like Capote or Blue Jasmine that grows as the picture expands.”

Sony Classics will expand the title’s distribution over October, moving it to about 25 theaters next week and double that in the following week.

“We’ll expand as wide as we can before Thanksgiving,” said Barker. “Its widest expansion will be at the beginning of January. It’s certainly worthy of awards consideration. It’s going to play for a long time.”

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