John Wilson’s The History Of Concrete had a record-breaking IFC Center debut, grossing $90k in three days for the top doc opening and the second-highest weekend gross in the NYC theater’s 21-year history after only Parasite ($119k in 2019). Nearly every available ticket sold for the entire weekend, including for shows added Saturday afternoon for last night and today.
It was a wild weekend. “We knew last week we had pre-sold about $60k in tickets and were on target for a really big weekend. And we kept adding in shows, and they kept selling out. Every show, every ticket,” says Neal Block, head of distribution and marketing at Magnolia, which acquired the film out of Sundance. On Friday, I thought we could get to $75k. But we kept selling out. including morning shows, and the grosses kept inching higher.”
He attributes the surge in large part to Wilson, host of acclaimed documentary comedy series How To With John Wilson (EP Nathan Fielder) that ran on HBO for three seasons (2020-2023). Wilson also co-founded and helps run Low Cinema, a 42-seat micro-theater in Ridgewood, Queens, so is something of a local celebrity. Fans and the press have been curious about his next project and he’d been working on this film for some time. Block also said the distributor limited exposure to the film with few screenings between Sundance and opening weekend to build anticipation.
He said demos skewed young – not Gen Z Backrooms young, but 20s to mid 40s. The film expands next week to about 40 screens in 15 markets including LA and Brooklyn. Rolls out to 50 markets on a few hundred screens Oct. 2.
Magnolia’s been having a nice run. Late Fame by Kent Jones starring Willem Dafoe crossed $500k this weekend on 30 screens for an estimated $523k cume. The film opened August. 7 and hung in, playing well with an older arthouse demo. Maddie’s Secret by and starring John Early opened in June, topping out at $1.2 million.
Looking now at a rare happening as two films from faith-based distributors vied at the domestic box office. Angel Studio’s Runner is no. 6 on 2,472 screens for a week 2 gross of $3.18 million and a hefy cume near $12 million. Daniel And The Fiery Furnace from EKKL Entertainment, a PG-13 rated origin story of the Prophet Daniel starring Elijah Alexander and Mena Massoud and directed by Daniel and Matthew Kooman, opened at no. 7 with $3.14 million on 1,520 screens.
This is a broad market of films — straight from the Scriptures, to inspirational and values-based fare, to something like Angel’s latest, a more mainstream action-comedy thriller with a help-save-a-young-girl’s-life premise starring Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson.
Daniel is one of the first releases by Michael Scott’s new EKKL label, a sort of rebrand of his Pinnacle Peak Pictures. Scott had also co-founded the Pure Flix streaming service that Sony acquired in 2020.
He calls faith-based a genre, like horror, with an equally enthusiastic fan base. Fans see it as “good and clean” cinema and it can bring multiple generations to the theater together, clapping and cheering as a story “the audience holds near and dear” comes to life. The films are fairly critic-proof.
Women 35+ are typically the key drivers. Daniel skewed more male with lions and fiery furnace action. The film, which was shot in northern India near the Pakistan border, is meant to be the first in a series from the Book of Daniel.
EKKL also has a sister streaming service with audiobooks, podcasts, film content, and prayer and devotion.
More top ten: Panning for gold, Vertical’s The Weight cracked the no. 9 spot opening weekend. Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe star in Padraic McKinley’s feature film debuting on 1,504 screens. Vertical notes strong play at major chains nationwide topped by NY (AMC Lincoln Square & 34th Street, Alamo Brooklyn) and LA (AMC Century City & Burbank) as well as strong sales in San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix, Nashville, West Palm Beach, Minneapolis and St. Louis. Art house audiences turned out on stellar reviews. Outdoorsy markets solidly over-performed from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Traverse City Michigan, Rapid City South Dakota and Billings Montana.
The survival epic set in 1933 Oregon features stunning, forests and an unforgiving wilderness beautifully captured by McKinley on hand-held digital equipment.
Moderate/limited releases:A solid showing for If I Go Will They Miss Me, with an estimated $352k at 251 theaters in week 2 for a cume topping $400k. It debuted to $40k last week exclusively at AMC Century City. The Sundance-premiering Rich Spirit release starring Danielle Brooks and J Alphonse Nicholson and directed by Walter Thompson-Hernandez is garnering Awards attention for Brooks. Continues its theatrical run into October.
Greenwich Entertainment documentary You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way) opened to $20k at an exclusive run at NYC’s Film Forum, selling out multiple shows and repping one of the theater’s biggest 2026 doc openings.
The TIFF premiering romp tells the story of the 1972 Toronto production of the musical Godspell, featuring an eye-popping cast of future comedy titans: Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner, Dave Thomas—with Victor Garber as a hippie Jesus and Paul Shaffer as musical director.
A hit with film festivals over the last year, You Had to Be There was promoted to theater fans through partnerships with Broadway World, Playbill, and The Public Theater, and to comedy fans through partnerships with The Magnet Theater, Asylum Theater, and The Second City. Expands to about 100 theaters next week.
Watermelon Pictures debuted Traces Of Home by Colette Ghunim exclusively at the Angelika in NYC to $15k. The doc follows the filmmaker on a journey of self-discovery as she sets out to reunite her parents with the ancestral homes they were forced to flee as children in Palestine and Mexico. Executive produced by Melissa Barrera and John Leguizamo. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in U.S. Competition at DOC NYC. Adds the Laemmle Monica Film Center in LA next week and the top 10 markets the following.
Wide: Roadside Attraction’s Buddy kicked out another $1.93 million on 1,532 screens in week 4 for a $24.8 million cume. It is now Roadside’s third highest grossing film.
Neon’s Hope is eyeing an estimated $997k in week 2 from 1,400 locations and an estimated domestic cume through Sunday of $7.3 million. A police chief and hunters pursue a mysterious creature terrorizing a remote South Korean village.
Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom from Gkids, a StudioCanal and Aardman production, bowed to $1.9 million for the beloved animated franchise on 2,183 screens. When the Farmer destroys the flock’s beloved pumpkin patch, Shaun turns mad scientist to fix the problem, only for events to spiral out of control as a wild beast roams the woods of Mossingham. The film features the voices of John Sparkes and Justin Fletcher and is directed by Matthew Walker and Steve Cox. Rated PG.
The Uprising from Focus Features and Blumhouse grossed an estimated $1.2 million from 2,069 theaters in North America in week 2 for an estimated cume of $5.78 million. The medieval historical epic starring Andrew Garfield was written and directed by Paul Greengrass.