Specialty Box Office: 'The Artist' And 'A Separation' Cash In Oscar Wins

UPDATE, 5:32 PM: Oscar clearly proved lucrative for The Weinstein Company and Sony Pictures Classics. Best Foreign Language winner A Separation added 160 locations in its first post-Oscar weekend outing, grossing over $1 million for the Farsi-language feature, averaging over $4,000 per screen. Best Picture winner The Artist, meanwhile averaged $2,171 from 1,756 theaters, up from the previous week’s 966 locations.

The big box office story of course was Universal’s The Lorax. The studio’s specialty division Focus Features also rolled out a title of its own, Being Flynn, at four theaters with a moderate $11,386 average. Also debuting this weekend were Paladin’s Boy at two location, grossing $45,000 — coming in with the highest per screen average of the titles we’re currently reporting — and Zeitgeist’s The Salt Of The Earth also in two theaters, taking in $21,000. Fox Searchlight’s The Descendants, which won Best Adapted Screenplay at last weekend’s Oscars, dropped 195 theaters from last week, grossing over $1.3 million from 694 theaters. The film directed by Alexander Payne has cumed nearly $80.5 million.

1. Being Flynn (Focus Features) NEW [4 Theaters]
Weekend $45K, Per Screen Average $11,386

2. Boy (Paladin) NEW [2 Theaters]
Weekend $23K, Per Screen Average $11,695

3. Last Days Here (Sundance Selects) NEW [1 Theater]
Weekend $3K

4. The Salt Of Life (Zeitgeist) NEW [2 Theaters]
Weekend $21K, Per Screen Average $10,500

5. The Forgiveness Of Blood (Sundance Selects) Week 2 [6 Theaters]
Weekend $19,200, Per Screen Average $3,200, Cume $50K

6. Bullhead (Drafthouse Films) Week 3 [17 Theaters]
Weekend $17K, Per Screen Average $1,045, Cume $118K

7. Undefeated (The Weinstein Company) Week 3 [13 Theaters]
Weekend $84K, Per Screen Average $6,485, Cume $166K

8. In Darkness (Sony Classics) Week 4 [25 Theaters];
Weekend $93K; Per Screen Average $3,752, Cume $297K

9. Rampart (Millennium Entertainment) Week 4 [52 Theaters]
Weekend $117, Per Screen Average $2,253, Cume $537K

10. W.E. (The Weinstein Company) Week 5 [19 Theaters]
Weekend $42K, Per Screen Average $2,213, Cume $326K

11. Coriolanus (The Weinstein Company) Week 7 [14 Theaters]
Weekend $37K, Per Screen Average $2,685, Cume $410K

12. Crazy Horse (Zipporah) Week 7 [10 Theaters]
Weekend $12K, Per Screen Average $1,256, Cume $90K

13. We Need To Talk About Kevin (Oscilloscope) Week 8 [40 Theaters]
Weekend $132K, Per Screen Average $3,300, Cume $817K

14. Pina (Sundance Selects) Week 10 [64 Theaters]
Weekend $153,600, Per Screen Average $2,400, Cume $2.8M

15. A Separation (Sony Classics) Week 10 [243 Theaters]
U.S. weekend $1M; Per Screen Average $4,122, Cume $3.7M

16. Iron Lady (The Weinstein Company) Week 10 [511 Theaters]
Weekend $900K, Per Screen Average $1,761, Cume $27M

17. The Artist (Weinstein) Week 15 [1,756 theaters]
Friday $938K, Saturday $1.6M, Weekend $3.8M, Cume $37M

18. A Dangerous Method (Sony Classics) Week 15 [38 Theaters]
U.S. weekend $52K; Per Screen Average $1,386, Cume $4.1M

19. My Week With Marilyn (The Weinstein Company) Week 15 [120 Theaters]
Weekend $133K, Per Screen Average $1,108, Cume $14.3M

20. The Descendants (Fox Searchlight) Week 16 [694 Theaters]
Weekend $1.3M, Per Screen Average $1,967, Cume $80M