Utopia, which knows its way around a music documentary (Meet Me In The Bathroom, Crestone) opened Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements at the Film Forum in NYC to $13.2k with sold-out Q&As and plans to roll the Venice-premiering satirical hybrid doc/mockumentary across key markets in May ahead of a national release June 6. It’s sitting at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes (31 reviews).
Each stop of the road show from LA (sold out preview at Vidiots on the 8th) and Brooklyn next weekend (also holding at the Film Forum) to San Francisco, Nashville, Knoxville, Portland and Chicago — feature sold and selling-out sessions with directors and band members whose film is as much a satire of a music doc as the real thing. Actual archival footage and interviews alternate with a movie-within-a-movie that has actors playing band members (Joe Keery as Stephen Malkmus; Fred Hechinger as Bob Nastanovich; Natt Wolff as Scott Kannenberg) and Jason Schwartzman as Chris Lombardi, founder of the group’s label Matador Records. There’s a reimagining of an actual theatrical production called Slanted! Enchanted! and a museum memorabilia show.
The venerable slacker indie rock band came together in 1989 in Stockton, California.
Utopia’s head of marketing and distribution Kyle Greenberg says the Film Forum audience is multigenerational from Gen Z to boomers checking out the film with long lines and strong walk-up traffic. “As we find on many releases, bands that might be a bit older, because of discoverability these days, there is a chance … for these bigger acts” to find new audiences.
The indie film scene is a tough one and the overall marketplace crowded with new studio fare barreling into theaters at its fastest pace in months. Pavements‘ marketing, Greenberg says, will be “hyper-localized” to the road show and mostly driven by social with paid picking up as word-of-mouth builds. The film will play a single screen in each market this month, leaning into its arthouse partners and activations around each theater, some of which will play bonus music videos before and after screenings. Others are creating Pavement museums and artifacts, “having fun with the meta aspects of the film.” Before the real trailer hit (watch it here), Utopia released a fake teaser for the fake movie-within-the-movie.
Other indie openings: Greenwich Entertainment’s Bonjour Tristesse, a new adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s coming-of-age novel, had a terrific debut with $102.6k on 228 screens.
Rust, a difficult movie to release, grossed $25k at 115 theaters, presented by Falling Forward Films.
Most People Die On Sundays from Big World Pictures opened to $8.1k at the Film Forum.
Oscilloscope’s Vulcanizadora debuted at $5.2k. Joel Potrykus’s fifth feature is a NYT Critics Pick and 98% with critics on RT. expands to additional screenings in NY and Los Angeles next weekend.
Wide/moderate release indies include no. 7, Angel Studios’ animated The King Of Kings, which is sticking around in week 4 with $1.8 million on 2,035 screens. Closing on a $57.7 million cume.
A24 is no. 8 with Warfare in week 4 on 1,315 screens for a $1.27 milion weekend and a $24 million cume.
Sailesh Kolanu’s Telugu breakout HIT: The Third Case from Prathyangira debuted at no. 9 with $870k weekend on 590 screens, for a $2.1 million cume, as per Comscore.
And The Surfer from Roadside Attractions starring Nicolas Cage rounded out the top ten at $675k on 884 screens.
