Latest in Specialty Preview

"It was a contributor to the specialty box office, and I hope it will be again," says Laemmle CEO Greg Laemmle of MoviePass, the subscription service that unsurprisingly went bankrupt in early 2020 after offering a movie a day for ten bucks a month. A co-founder Stacy Spikes, who was pushed out amid…

As Sanctuary, Zachary Wigon's twisted tale of a dominatrix and her wealthy client, opens in NY and LA, David Lancaster of producer Rumble Films recalls a speedy 18-day shoot on a custom-made set in Brownsville, Brooklyn in late summer of 2021. It was Covid, so not the easiest time for indie…

A beloved ballplayer and an iconic consumer device join a Hollywood satire by Charlie Day, an Emanuele Crialese film with Penelope Cruz and debuts from Sundance and Venice in a potentially strong specialty weekend that will test the appetite for indie film with no new franchise wide releases. Sony…

A sleek theater from Look Dine-In Cinemas opened this weekend in NYC (or reopened at the former Landmark) on West 57th Street. With wood, windows and well-stocked bar, it's the face of exhibition that wants to grab moviegoers and keep them. Related Story Former Landmark Theatres Site On N…

Focus Features' Sundance-premiering Polite Society opens on 927 screens, the feature debut of writer/director Nida Manzoor, creator of We Are Lady Parts, the Peacock comedy about the eponymous British punk rock band. This comedic mash-up of sisterly affection, parental disappointment and bold…

After posting giant per screen numbers at four theaters last weekend, A24’s Beau Is Afraid  jumps to 926 for the distributor's third outing with Ari Aster. It’s a very different film from his horror favorites Hereditary and Midsommar but one the distributor hopes will cement the director's place as a…

Ari Aster, the horror maestro behind Hereditary and Midsommar, is out with Beau Is Afraid on four screens as A24 presents the film in LA (AMC Century City and Burbank) and New York (AMC Lincoln Square, Alamo Brooklyn), in Imax on both coasts, followed next week by a regional Imax expansion and into to a…

Owen Wilson is back, with brushes, as the longtime host of a beloved but fading Burlington, Vermont-based PBS instructional art show. Paint from IFC Films opens Friday on 800-plus screens. Public television is always ripe for parody and happens to be a world Wilson knows. His father Robert Wilson…

As the new crop of 2023 festival favorites roll out, Focus Features presents A Thousand And One in over 900 carefully curated theaters, testing the appetite for specialty fare at a challenging moment. Short film and video director A.V. Rockwell's feature-length debut stars Teyana Taylor as…

The much-maligned Richard III finally gets the royal treatment in Stephen Frears’ The Lost King as amateur historian Philippa Langley unearths the monarch's five-century-old remains in a parking lot in Leicester, England, in 2012. Two books and a documentary later, IFC Films presents the feature film…

Two icons are back in action this weekend as Roadside Attractions presents the comedy Moving On with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin on close to 800 screens, hoping it will connect with female audiences.Focus Features also opens Willem Dafoe-starring Inside from Vasilis Katsoupis on 350+ screens. It’s…

Shout! Studios presents The Magic Flute by Florian Zigl, executive produced by Roland Emmerich, at 325 theaters with expansion likely. A reimagining of the Mozart opera, it follows a present-day teen sent from London to the Austrian Alps on singing scholarship at the legendary Mozart boarding school…