‘Your Name,’ Anne Hathaway’s ‘Colossal’ Shine at Indie Box Office

The critically acclaimed anime hit arrived in the U.S., along with Anne Hathaway’s unique monster movie

Your Name

In a weekend that had plenty of new releases and expansions, the biggest star at the indie box office was Funimation’s “Your Name,” which finally arrived in U.S. theaters this weekend after becoming the highest-grossing anime film of all time, ending the 15-year reign of Hayao Miyazaki’s legendary “Spirited Away.”

Makoto Shinkai’s tale of a Tokyo boy and a small-town girl who randomly switch bodies as they attempt to avert a horrific disaster has made an estimated $1.6 million from 294 screens for an impressive per screen average of $5,442 and bringing its worldwide cume to $330 million.

“Your Name” is the first anime film to gross over $300 million worldwide, though “Spirited Away” remains the highest grossing film in Japan. In its home country, “Your Name” is fourth on the all-time list behind “Spirited Away,” “Titanic,” and “Frozen.”

Also enjoying success this week is “Colossal,” which comes to us from Neon, a new distributor launched by former RADiUS head Tom Quinn and Alamo Drafthouse co-founder Tim League. Director Nacho Vigalondo‘s sci-fi film had the highest per-screen average of any release this week, making $125,809 from four theaters for an average of $31,452 per screen.

‘Colossal’ stars Anne Hathaway as Gloria, a wayward blogger who returns to her small New England town after separating from her boyfriend (Dan Stevens). After reuniting with an elementary school classmate (Jason Sudekis) and getting a job at his bar, the story takes a hard left turn into the fantastical as Gloria discovers that a monster appears in Seoul and mimics her movements whenever she walks through a playground in the morning.

The film has received positive reviews since premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, currently holding a 72 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

This weekend also saw Captain America himself, Chris Evans, return to his indie roots with Fox Searchlight’s “Gifted,” a film in which he plays the widowed father of a girl who is a math prodigy (Mckenna Grace). But while he believes his wife would have wanted their child to live a normal life, his mother (Lindsay Duncan) wants the girl to use her calculus skills to their fullest and fights for custody rights.

The film made $476,000 from 56 screens for an average of $8,500 and currently has a 63 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating. It will expand to over 1,000 screens next weekend.

STXfilms’ “Their Finest,” a WWII dramedy by Lone Scherfig about the making of a British propaganda film about the Dunkirk rescue, made $77,000 from four screens; while Screen Media’s “The Void,” a Lovecraftian homage to ’80s low-budget horror films that follows a group of survivors hunted by a cult in a run-down hospital, made $55,000 from 31 screens.

Among holdovers, Focus Features’ “The Zookeeper’s Wife” led the way with $2.9 million from 804 screens, giving it a domestic cume of $7.6 million after its second weekend.

China Lion’s “The Devotion of Suspect X” made $146,000 from 46 theaters, bring its cume to $569,000.

Meanwhile, IFC Films’ “Personal Shopper” passed the $1 million mark after making $134,232 in its fifth weekend from 141 screens.

Comments