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Theaters are brimming over with an army of well-reviewed and buzzy indie films. But, in an unusual state of affairs, pretty much all of them are in wide release, meaning Terrifier 3, Piece by Piece, Saturday Night and The Apprentice, as well as animated My Hero Academia: You’re Next. Limited openings are few — a trio of quality documentaries, A24’s We Live In Time, a couple of Academy runs and a faith-based Mormon film on Brigham Young’s ascendance. There also are a half-dozen Indian films in limited to moderate release.
Starting with Kino Lorber’s doc Daytime Revolution. It opened Wednesday in 60+ theaters for a one-day event screening timed to John Lennon’s 84th birthday and now playing at NYC’s Quad Cinema. Directed by Emmy- and IDA Award-winning filmmaker Erik Nelson, and with creative consultation from Yoko Ono and Sean Ono Lennon, it chronicles the week in 1972 when John and Yoko took over The Mike Douglas Show and beamed a revolution directly into the living rooms of 40 million Americans. It features archival footage from each of the five episodes, interviews with six of the original guests and behind-the-scenes madness of the unprecedented week of television.
Lennon and Ono descended on a Philadelphia broadcasting studio on Valentine’s Day 1972 to co-host what then was the most popular show on daytime television. With Lennon and Ono at the helm acting as producers and hosts, and Douglas keeping the show on track, they handpicked guests including yippie founder Jerry Rubin, Black Panther chair Bobby Seale, political activist Ralph Nader and comic truth teller George Carlin for a radical take on the traditional daytime format. They incorporated Q&As on police violence, women’s liberation, conceptual art events with musical performances including a duet with Lennon and Chuck Berry and a rendition of Lennon’s “Imagine.”
CNN Films and Greenwich Entertainment present Matt Tyrnauer’s Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid at the IFC Center, adding LA’s Laemmle Royal on the 25th. The Telluride-premiering doc chronicles 18 tumultuous months inside the 2024 presidential election from the distinctive vantage point of one of the most influential, charismatic and combative voices in the Democratic Party, James Carville.
Bill Clinton, Al Hunt, Donna Brazile, George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, Mandy Grunwald, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Mitch Landrieu and Sidney Blumenthal trace the story of Carville’s rise from the bayou to the Beltway, culminating in his masterminding of Clinton’s stunning presidential win in 1992. The film is intercut with Carville’s present-day efforts to get President Biden to forgo seeking re-election and with the 30-year love affair between Carville and Republican operative Mary Matalin.
There are echoes of D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus’ iconic 1993 doc The War Room, which followed some of the 1992 Clinton campaign with strategists Carville and George Stephanopoulos.
Documentary Mediha by Hasan Oswald (with Emma Thompson executive producer) opens at the Film Forum for a one-week run. Friday and Saturday shows will be followed by Q&As with Hasan and Mediha, a teenage Yazidi girl searching for her family and for justice after being kidnapped by ISIS and sold into slavery. Winner of the DOC NYC Grand Jury Award last year.
Mediha turns the camera on herself to process her trauma after surviving captivity, and the film captures her resilience as she documents her experiences across Iraq, Turkey and Syria through her personal video diaries.
Amazon MGM opens Legendary Pictures’ Brothers for an Academy-qualifying run at 10 theaters. Directed by Palm Springs‘ Max Barbakow and starring Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage, it will stream on Prime Video starting October 17. Written by Macon Blair, from a story by Etan Cohen, Brothers follows reformed a criminal (Brolin) whose attempt at going straight is derailed when he reunites with his sanity-testing twin brother (Dinklage) on a road trip for the score of a lifetime.
We Live in Time from A25 opens in five theaters this weekend in LA and NY ahead of a wider release next week. The TIFF-premiering decades-spanning romantic comedy (see Deadline review) with Apple stars Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh.
Netflix opens TIFF-premiering Woman of the Hour by Anna Kendrick in her directorial debut at The Paris and the Bay theaters. It tells the stranger-than-fiction story of a young woman who actually won a date on The Dating Game with a man who turned out to be a notorious serial killer. Streaming October 18.
Faith-based Mormon history western Six Days in August by Mark Goodman, distributed by Utah-based Susan Tuckett Media, opens on about 88 screens in 16 states and Canada. Expands next week. The biopic explores the four days in August 1844 after John Smith, founder of Church of the Latter Day Saints, was killed by a mob and members of his congregation came together to chart the path forward, with Brigham Young emerging as their new leader. He guided 60,000 people from Illinois and helped to settle the West.
The August meeting remained a tradition. Tuckett is hoping it will attract some history buffs as well as the faithful.
Goodman also helmed 2021’s Witness by the same producer, Redbrick Films, which grossed $856k during Covid with the story of skeptics challenging testimony by Book of Mormon witnesses that angels appeared and hefted golden metal plates containing ancient inscriptions. Paul Wuthrich plays Joseph Smith in both films and also starred in faith-based Escape from Germany about missionaries under Hitler’s regime, which grossed $2.6 million earlier this year.
Toho International’s My Hero Academia: You’re Next 2024 by Tensai Okamura opens on 1,845 screens. This is the fourth theatrical release for the popular Japanese anime franchise based on the comic series by Kohei Horikoshi that’s sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Set after the conclusion of My Hero Academia Season 6 and right before the final battle between heroes and villains, My Hero Academia: You’re Next (2024) sees Deku and his friends face a new threat in Dark Might, a mysterious figure claiming to be the Symbol of Peace. Grossed an estimated $413k at Thursday previews.
Other wide indies covered here: Iconic’s release of Cineverse’s Terrifier 3 by Damien Leione, the latest gory adventures from Art The Clown, grossed a hefty $2.6 millionin Thursday previews that began at 8 p.m. Opens on 2,300 screens.
Focus Features’ LEGO-animated biopic Piece By Piece by Morgan Neville opens on 1,851 screens today. Grossed $450k at 1,500 locations Thursday. The vibrant journey of cultural icon Pharrell Williams. With Williams, Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg. Premiered at Telluride and TIFF.
Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night from Columbia Pictures goes wide at 2,146 locations. Made $370K for Thursday night early shows starting at 2 p.m. in 2,146 locations.
Briarcliff’s release of Ali Abassi’s The Apprentice starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong opens this weekend on 1,740 screens. Took $150k in Thursday previews.