Hadestown Hits $9.7M Debut as Five Indies Crack Top Ten
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- Hadestown: The Musical (Bleecker Street) opened to $9.7M on 1,949 screens, the second-biggest debut for a live show capture since Hamilton, with distributor partner LD Entertainment expanding the initial five-day run due to extraordinary demand.
- The film holds a 99% audience score, is Certified Fresh, and was captured from the West End production featuring the original principal cast of the Tony- and Grammy-winning stage musical.
- Motor City (Independent Film Company), Potsy Ponciroli's 1970s Detroit revenge drama starring Alan Ritchson, landed at no. 9 with $1.6M on 1,600 theaters.
- Five independent films reached the domestic top ten this weekend — The Invite (no. 6), Young Washington (no. 8), Motor City (no. 9), and Obsession (no. 10), plus Hadestown — a rare indie sweep of the upper chart.
- Nicolas Winding Refn's Her Private Hell (Neon) opened to $530K on 675 screens, while Hirokazu Koreeda's Sheep In The Box is eyeing an estimated $33K from 3 screens.
- American Pachuco: The Legend Of Luis Valdez, winner of Sundance's U.S. Documentary Audience Award, added a dozen LA theaters in week 2 for an estimated $32.3K on 13 screens and a $41.4K cume as it mounts an Awards campaign.
Why it matters: Five of the top ten domestic slots went to indie films this weekend, a rare concentration in a top-heavy market. For Bleecker Street's new event-cinema label Crosswalk, Hadestown's $9.7M on a niche stage-capture validates the format and supports its rollout of upcoming concert documentaries like the George Michael Faith Tour release.
