Hadestown Overtakes Hamilton as Top-Grossing Stage Capture

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- Hadestown: The Musical from Bleecker Street grossed $2 million in week 2 on 1,567 screens, bringing its cumulative to $18.2 million and claiming the No. 6 spot at the domestic box office.
- Hadestown opened last weekend at $9.7 million on 1,949 screens; the capture was filmed from the West End production featuring the original principal cast.
- Hamilton's theatrical run topped out at approximately $17 million domestic (plus $4 million internationally), though it premiered on Disney+ in July 2020 during the height of the pandemic.
- A24's The Invite passed the $20 million mark with a $1.2 million weekend on 792 screens, holding the No. 7 spot in its seventh week of release.
- The Samurai And The Prisoner, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cannes competition entry from Janus Films, grossed $64.2k on 3 screens — the highest per-screen average of Kurosawa's career — with 20 additional screens planned next week.
- Wild Inside, a documentary about New York City celebrity owl Flaco, debuted exclusively at IFC to $20k with multiple sellouts and is booked at 75 locations through August, timed to International Owl Awareness Day.
- I Want Your Sex from Magnolia Pictures opened to $600k on 700 screens as one of several specialty newcomers during the record-setting weekend led by Spider-Man and other studio heavyweights.
Why it matters: Hadestown's $18.2 million in just two weeks eclipsed Hamilton's full domestic theatrical run of ~$17 million — a milestone achieved at specialty prices and 1,567 screens, suggesting demand for filmed stage musicals is expanding well beyond Disney+'s pandemic-era release strategy. The broader specialty slate (The Invite crossing $20M, Kurosawa's career-best per-screen average) shows independents meaningfully participated in a weekend that hit a record $429M domestic.




