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Big news in specialty this weekend as Asteroid City arrives in theaters with Wes Anderson and his army of fans behind it and a major marketing campaign by Focus Features. The director’s latest opens at six locations in New York and Los Angeles, where Focus has partnered with Landmark for the reopening of Sunset, the five-screen theater it took over from AMC early this year.
Others are the Angelika, Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn and AMC Lincoln Square in New York, and AMC Century City and Burbank in LA. The film, which premiered in Cannes last month (see Deadline review), will expand to around 1,500 runs next week.
At Landmark Theatres’ Sunset, Asteroid City will take over the entire space for an exclusive two-week immersive experience. The pop-up opened to the public with preview screenings last night and all five screens at the theater will show the film for the entire first two weeks of its theatrical run. The experience includes limited edition merchandise and set pieces like turning the concession stand into a replica of the diner in the film.
“It was a super-collaborative effort. We knew we were opening the theater…and you want to make a splash,” Landmark’s President Kevin Holloway told Deadline. “As we were looking at dates we ended up speaking with Focus, and it ended up being a mix of ideas we all had.”
The timing of the Asteroid City opening “was so well synched, we thought let’s just blow this thing out.”
Distributors and exhibitors have to think out of the box these days to market films, especially more artistic fare, but an all-screen, two-week commitment is unusual. “To do it justice, we wanted to give it [all] five screens, to lean in, and not have people “walking in and out of another film and into the space,” Holloway said.
Landmark announced in Feb. that it was taking over AMC’s Sunset 5 at 8000 W Sunset Boulevard. It will be renovating the theater in stages after the opening push, including adding a bar, which has become pretty much de rigueur in the space. The chain will also be launching a loyalty program this summer.
Specialty exhibitors are clearly happy about Asteroid City. Anderson is true indie royalty at a time when it’s still much harder than in pre-Covid days to lure large numbers of moviegoers to anything that is not a wide-release franchise film.
Other exhibition partners include Alamo Drafthouse, which has also transformed the lobby of its lower Manhattan location into an Asteroid City through June 26. It held an advance screening at its Brooklyn theater followed by a live Q&A with Wes Anderson, Adrian Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Rupert Friend, Stephen Park, Hope Davis, Jake Ryan, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman, and Maya Hawke that was live streamed to 28 of the chain’s theaters.
Anderson’s usual starry cast also includes Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Steve Carell, Tilda Swinton, Jeffrey Wright, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie and Tony Revolori.
The Angelika is offering a free movie-themed t-shirt Friday through Sunday to first 1,000 guests each day.
Social includes a big push with TikTok activations and a partnership with Instagram. The platform has launched a series of in-app AR effects that both place users in Asteroid City itself, and give them a suite of tools to film video in Wes Anderson’s unique visual style.
In retail, Lush flagship stores in London and Las Vegas were retooled as Asteroid City Gift Shops complete with diner counters, in-world activations and merchandise including an asteroid bath bomb, doomsday soap and spaceship shower gel.
In NYC, the Museum of the Moving Image launched screening series DO NOT DETONATE: In the Orbit of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, featuring a dozen films that evoke the historical, social, or fantastical milieu of the new film, which is set in a fictional American desert town circa 1955 where the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.
Anderson’s most recent film, French Dispatch, opened in October of 2021 to $1.35 million on 52 screens for what was then the highest PSA since Covid. It grossed $46 million worldwide ($16 million U.S.).
In 2014, Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel opened at $800k on four screens, for a PSA of $200k and went on to gross $590 million worldwide ($172 million U.S.) – a different place in time. The film had incredibly good word of mouth and a long run in theaters.
Other openings: There is not much else new in specialty this week. Viva Entertainment could see a pop with Adipurush, a screen adaptation of the Indian epic Ramayana about two brothers who battle the forces of evil, on 600 screens.
Screen Media presents David Slattery’s comedy Maggie Moore(s), which just debuted at the Tribeca Festival, in 15 theaters and on-demand. See Deadline review. Tina Fey and Jon Hamm star in the story of a detective investigating the murders of two women with the same name. With Micah Stock, Nick Mohammed, Happy Anderson and Mary Holland.