The Civil Dead delights fans of the duo behind Utopia’s micro-budget supernatural sleeper comedy – Box Office Special

Utopia opened the loose comedy by Clay Tatum and Whitmer Thomas the civil death, the feature film debut of lifelong friends from Gulf Shores, Alabama, who have been collaborating on projects since elementary school — from skateboarding videos to an HBO special. It has grossed $17,000 on 27 screens so far, including a sneak peek Q&A tour at Alamo Drafthouse locations in NY, LA, San Francisco, Denver and Austin that kicked off last week. The Five Alamos sold out a dozen shows and raised $10,000 of the $17,000 for the winner of the 2022 Slamdance Audience Award, which went for $30,000.

The story of a misanthropic, struggling photographer (Thomas) who wants to watch TV and eat candy while his wife is out of town, only to have his plans thwarted when an old friend (Tatum) reappears with sinister consequences.

Utopia said given the demand and sold-out screenings earlier this week, the supernatural buddy comedy will continue in theaters this Friday alongside a digital PVOD release. It will judge. Ant-Man and the Waste: Quantumania will be sucking screens from next weekend, including at art houses like the Alamo, spanning indies and wide releases.

Thomas is a comedian, actor and filmmaker whose special Whitmer Thomas: The Golden was released on HBO in 2020 and produced by Bo Burnham, Chris Storer and A24 and directed by Tatum. Thomas and Tatum co-produced, voiced, and wrote the 2014 ADHD animated series stone quack on FXX (now on Hulu) with John C. Reilly.

The civil death is one of two Slamdance winners hitting theaters this weekend. Cinedigm features Joshua Pikovsky and Jordan Tetewsky Hannah Hahawhich won this year’s Slamdance Grand Jury Narrative Feature Award Winner in NY and LA.

Filmmakers “like this one are so exciting to watch. If you can do The civil death for $30,000, if they get double that for their next film, it’s going to be very special. You don’t need a million dollars to make a movie,” said Kyle Greenberg, Utopia’s director of marketing and distribution.

The civil death Agree 100% with Rotten Tomatoes critics.

Utopia is known for its DIY micro-budget films Shiva Baby, El Planeta And We’re all going to the World’s Fair to come therapy dogsanother asset from Slamdance 2022.

These and others “rewrite the narrative that films without great talent don’t have audiences, or films that are a little unusual can’t find audiences,” he said. Not that it would be easy. No wonder micro-budget properties also have small marketing and advertising budgets and less support from exhibitors with limited space. “It’s about focusing on the audience and building the brand of films and filmmakers like these guys” and their fans.

Other special openings: dedication by IFC Films/Shudder saw an estimated weekend gross of $365,000 on 762 screens for a $479 PSA. Directed by Chris Smith and starring Jena Malone, the horror film follows a woman who goes to a convent in Scotland to find the suspect investigating her brother’s death, murder, sacrilege and a disturbing truth about her own past expose.

Gaspar Noe Irreversible: straight cut According to an estimate by Frank Jaffe of distributor Altered Innocence, he earned an estimated $11.3K from two screens, the Landmark Nuart in LA and NYC at the IFC Center.

That’s an average opening per screen of around $5.7,000 for the 2019 director’s cut of the controversial film starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel. On a violent and tragic night in Paris, two men seek revenge for the brutal rape and assault of the woman they love. The original film unfolds with the reverse story. Straight cut flipped it to show events chronologically.

Greenwich Entertainment presents iMordechai sees an estimated $12.5K weekend gross from two locations for a $6.25 PSA on two screens in South Florida locations (Miami and Boca Raton). The 2022 Miami Jewish Film Festival Audience Award Winner consists of Judd Hirsch (as director, Mordecai Samuels), Carol Kane and Sean Astin. The regional platform release will expand to an additional 15 locations in South Florida in week two.