‘Moonlight,’ Oscar’s Surprise Best Picture Winner, Will Shine Wide This Weekend

EXCLUSIVE: In its 20th weekend at the box office, A24’s Moonlight will expand to 1,500-plus theaters following its three Oscar wins Sunday.

That’s a bigger expansion than last year’s Best Picture winner Spotlight, which jumped to 1,227 theaters, and 2015’s Birdman, which flew to 1,213. Similar to those Best Pic winners, Moonlight‘s win comes at a time when it’s already available on DVD and electronic sellthrough/rental. Currently, the movie is in play at 585 venues and grossed $591K last weekend.

Moonlight has been on a hot streak at the specialty B.O. since its October 21 debut and for a moment posted the best opening -pertheater average of 2016 ($100,5K) — until awards-season rival La La Land topped it with $176,2K. Since earning eight Oscar noms on January 24, Moonlight saw a 39% jump in its total B.O., rising from $15.9M to $22.1M. Rivals believe the Barry Jenkins-directed movie stands to gain another $4M-$6M in its domestic B.O. life cycle.