Sony Pictures Classics art heist caper The Duke, Neon’s tender Petite Maman, and Charlotte from Good Deed Films, an animated biopic with mature themes, open an eclectic specialty weekend ready to draw older crowds if they’re ready to return.
Younger demos are back when they like the pic, as per A24s Everything Everywhere All At Once. Families also, based on Sonic The Hedgehog 2. With CinemaCon opening Monday to set the theatrical table for the rest of 2022 and beyond, NATO chief John Fithian predicts the reluctance of the 35 to 40+ crowd is “definitely going to change.”
“I think the growth is going to come as much from smaller budget films as from blockbusters,” he tells Deadline ahead of the first full-blown confab of exhibitors, studios and indie distributors since Covid. Audiences that have stayed the most at home are “the most excited about coming back out,” he said.
The Duke with Jim Broadbent as a geriatric London taxi driver and art thief, leading into Focus Features’ Downton Abbey: A New Era on May 20 could be a swing factor. It’s key because older demos have been a core audience for prestige films and foreign language fare that give the theatrical ecosystem depth and breadth.
The Duke is directed by the late Roger Michell and starts in two NYC theaters before expanding. One, the Angelika, offers ticket buyers a free pass “to bring a friend back to the movies.” The film is based on the true story of Broadbent’s Kempton Bunton, who became the first person to successfully rip off the National Gallery in London, stealing Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington in 1961 and saying he’d return if the government agreed to invest more in elder care. Helen Mirren plays his wife Dorothy. Written by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman.
Petite Maman is the study of an intense, brief friendship between two eight-year-old girls, played by sisters Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz. Written and directed by Céline Sciamma, the French filmmaker behind 2019’s award-winning pic Portrait of a Lady on Fire, it premiered at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival. Deadline review here.
Animated drama Charlotte is the true story of Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War and is forced to flee Berlin to the South of France and more troubles. With Keira Knightley voicing Charlotte. Directed by Eric Warin and Tahir Rana. Written by Erik Rutherford, David Bemzogis. In five theaters, expanding thereafter. Premiered at TIFF in 2021.
Special events: Entertainment One and Fathom Events present animated series PJ Masks at 500 locations on Saturday only. Includes the 4-part special, Heroes of the Sky, with dance music videos, episodes, and a new clip of the latest PJ Masks thematic adventures, Animal Power.
Post a Comment