Musk, the 225-minute feature documentary from director Alex Gibney about the world’s richest man, is apparently winding down its theatrical run after just two weeks on screens—so says industry news site Showbiz411.
The sprawling doc earned praise from critics on the festival circuit. Its limited four-theater release in New York and Los Angeles on October 9 had a respectable opening weekend gross—each screen earning an average of $17,225 for a $68,900 total. Expanding to more theaters in more markets was the logical next step, which its distributor Bleeker Street Films did last Friday, raising the number of screens to 472. But Musk’s wider-debut was an unmitigated flop, netting a paltry $614 per screen, for an abysmal second weekend total of $290,000. Box Office Mojo has the film’s to-date total up to $571,902, as of this article’s publication.
Though there’s a constant push-and-pull from both sides, the industry has more-or-less settled on giving most films typically a 45-day theatrical window. Some blockbusters with legs will go even longer, upward of 90 days. Once pulled from big screens, a film moves on through the secondary market stages of its life cycle (Premium VOD, streaming, cable). Musk getting pulled after only two weeks would be a rare occurrence, but not the most far-fetched or unreasonable decision, particularly given its lackluster performance and that massive run time cannibalizing its own profit potential or that of a film that could screen in its stead.
” It attempts to substantiate its case by saying the list of theaters on Bleeker Street’s website for Musk showtimes “shows that all 472 were listed as playing the movie today.
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