How ‘Tár’ and ‘Till’ Aim to Boost Specialty Box Office in Nationwide Expansion

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Two challenging dramas with Oscar-contending actresses will enter wider release this weekend

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Cate Blanchett in "Tár" and Danielle Deadwylerin "Till" (Focus Features; United Artists/Orion)

While “Black Adam” and “Ticket to Paradise” continue their campaign to turn star power into a long box office run, a pair of critically acclaimed art-house dramas — Focus Features’ “Tár” and United Artists/Orion’s “Till” — will try to maintain the specialty market recovery that has been quietly building this month as they expand nationwide.

“Tár,” directed by Todd Field, follows the self-inflicted downfall of a brilliant but manipulative classical music conductor, while “Till,” directed by Chinonye Chukwu, retells the true story of Mamie Till-Mobley and her quest for justice after her son, Emmett, was murdered in one of the most infamous hate crimes in American history. Both films are projected to open to $5 million or less. “Tár” will expand to approximately 1,000 locations, while “Till” reaches 2,058.

These films have launched their lead stars, Cate Blanchett and Danielle Deadwyler, into the Best Actress Oscar race and have been among the most prominent specialty films in limited release this month. How they have performed in this limited run and are expected to earn as they go wide can be viewed in a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty light.

The half-full view: “Tár” currently holds one of the top per-theater averages of the year, earning $39,655 per theater from its platform release in New York and Los Angeles earlier this month. The only two limited releases with higher averages this year are A24’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” with a $50,130 average in March and Searchlight’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” which averaged $46,113 this past weekend. “Till,” meanwhile,” has grossed $693,000 through Monday after expanding from 16 to 104 theaters last weekend.

The half-empty view is that these likely Oscar nominees aren’t making anywhere near what awards contenders have earned in past years. Last month, indie distributors told TheWrap that they were skeptical that a New York/Los Angeles release could ever earn a per theater average of over $100,000 again in the way that movies like 2018’s “The Favourite” ($105,602) or 2019’s “Parasite” ($131,072) did from their pre-pandemic platform launches.

But no prestige film in 2022 is expected to hit those heights. The goal is simply to show progress over last year. Boxoffice analyst Shawn Robbins is optimistic that the limited runs of “Tár” and “Till” reveal that this corner of the market is on its way to recovery, but believes that no one will be able to make a full analysis until these films complete their runs around Oscar Sunday.

“Throughout this year, we’ve had every conceivable litmus test for how different kinds of films perform in theaters except for these kinds of mature dramas, and unlike blockbusters we can’t make a judgment call during opening weekend,” Robbins said. “The good news is that it’s not just one film. It’s a variety of films with different tones and subject matters that will appeal to different audiences.”

Indeed, any judgments on the wide run of “TÁR” and “Till” will have to take into account that both are very challenging films tackling thought-provoking themes of racism, justice, abuse of power and cancel culture, just to name a few. Only a specific portion of cinephiles will be seeking out these films, compared to upcoming films like “The Fabelmans” and “Babylon,” which have a better chance at mainstream appeal.

But such challenges haven’t kept art-house films released before 2020 from finding their niche in the theatrical market and turning a profit. The question is whether those niches are still around or whether the need to see challenging cinema on the big screen is dwindling away. The answers will only begin to come this weekend.

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