The specialty box office is following two paths.
High-profile narrative festival premieres such as “The Dead Don’t Die” (Focus), “Late Night” (Amazon) and “Booksmart” (United Artists) play wide quickly.
And documentaries like “Pavarotti” (CBS), “Echo in the Canyon” (Greenwich), and “The Biggest Little Farm” (Neon) catch a wave and ride success as they widen.The old-fashioned arthouse platform release is a challenge but it can work: A24’s acclaimed Sundance debut “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” is showing rare strength among more limited specialized narrative titles.
It remains a sign that careful handling of a critically praised film can still find an audience.How to assess “Late Night” and “Booksmart”? Amazon’s second weekend expansion — similar to the “Booksmart” opening– yielded a disappointing result a little below the latter title.
But it’s too early to predict how audiences are reacting as it propels ahead.No question,
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