Sony Pictures Classics is out with Jane Austen Wrecked My Life in limited release, Angel Studios’ The Last Rodeo opens wide and A24’s Friendship added screens with few new indies braving the double whammy of live action Lilo & Stitch and Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning.
The former may have set a Disney record for Memorial Day weekend previews, Deadline reports, while Tom Cruise’s high octane eighth outing as Ethan Hunt may have set a record preview night for a Mission: Impossible.
Jane Austen in her own right “has become a bit of a rock star in the marketplace,” SPC brass rightly noted when the distributor acquired the feature debut by Laura Piani ahead of its TIFF world premiere last year. It’s opening on 61 screens in select markets including Lincoln Square and Angelika Film Center in New York and the AMC Grove and Laemmle Royal in LA. SPC is planning a nationwide bump next week to about 500 runs.
Stars Camille Rutherford as Agathe, a hopelessly clumsy yet charming young woman who works in the legendary Shakespeare & Co. bookshop in Paris. She dreams of being a successful writer and of experiencing love akin to a Jane Austen novel but finds herself desperately single and plagued by writer’s block. When Agathe’s best friend (Pablo Pauly) gets her invited to the Jane Austen Writers’ Residency in England, she finally has her Jane Austen moment.
Certified Fresh at 85% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Angel Studios opens The Last Rodeo by Jon Avnet (Fried Green Tomatoes, Black Swan, Risky Business) on 2,205 screens. Stars Neal McDonough (who also co-wrote) as a retired rodeo legend who risks it all to save his grandson. Facing his own painful past and the fears of his family, he enters a high-stakes bull-riding competition as the oldest contestant ever. Along the way, he reconciles old wounds with his estranged daughter Sally (Sarah Jones) and proves that true courage is found in the fight for family. Produced in association with the Professional Bull Riders Association.
Also stars Christopher McDonald and Ruve McDonough. Written by Avnet, Neal McDonough and Derek Presley. This is Angel’s third partnership with faith-based McDonough Company after 2023 thriller The Shift and post-apocalyptic drama Homestead, slated for release December 20.
A24s Friendship starring comedian Tim Robinson (I Think You Should Leave) and Paul Rudd has a big week 3 expansion to about 1,200 screens from 60. After a great limited opening at 6 theaters it rocked an expansion to 60 last week with $1.4 million and a no. 7 spot at the domestic box office. The R-rated directorial debut of Andrew DeYoung follows a bromance gone bad between two suburban dads.
Comedy Bad Shabbos from Menemsha Films opens on four screens in NYC with Q&As at the Quad. Follows a $17k week and $110k run in Florida and a $225k cume from select showings. Expands to San Francisco May 30 and LA the following week.
Directed by Daniel Robbins, it star Kyra Sedgwick, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, David Paymer, Milana Vayntrub, Jon Bass, Meghan Leathers, Theo Taplitz, Catherine Curtin, John Bedford Lloyd and Ashley Zukerman.
David and his fiancée Meg are about to have their parents meet for the first time over a Shabbat dinner on New York’s Upper West Side when an accidental death (or murder?) gets in the way. With Meg’s Catholic parents due any moment, this family dinner soon spirals into disaster. Winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2024 Tribeca Festival.
The New Boy from Vertical, written and directed by Warwick Thornton, produced by and starring Cate Blanchett, is having a 7-day limited theatrical run before hitting VOD May 30. Set in 1940s Australia at a remote monastery with a mission for Aboriginal children run by a renegade nun, Sister Eileen (Blanchett). A new charge (Aswan Reid) is delivered in the dead of night, a boy who appears to have special powers. But the boy’s Indigenous spiritual life does not mesh with the mission’s Christianity and his mysterious power becomes a threat. Sister Eileen is faced with a choice between the traditions of her faith and the truth embodied in the boy. Premiered at Cannes in 2023, see Deadline review.
Restoration: Akira Kurosawa’s RAN, the director’s re-imagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear transposed to medieval 16th century Japan, starts a run at New York’s IFC Center and Laemmle Royal in LA to celebrate the epic’s 40th anniversary. The 4K restoration is being re-released by New York-based Rialto Pictures.
Resting after a wild boar hunt, warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai) decides to divide his domain among his three sons. A battle ensues between color-coded armies, a castle burns to the ground. Designed from the director’s own watercolor storyboards, the film had four Oscar nominations including Best Director, Cinematography and Art Direction, with Emi Wada winning for costumes.