Beau Is Afraid gets Best Screen 2023 at Box Office – Variety

Ari Aster’s latest suspense thriller “Beau Is Afraid” has taken the independent box office by storm.

A24 movie starring Joaquin Phoenix as a fearless man who endures a lot Over the course of three hours, it grossed $320,396 on four screens in New York and Los Angeles. Those ticket sales translate to $80,099 per site, the biggest screen average of the year. It is also the second-best per-screen average for A24 after Adam Sandel’s crime thriller ‘Uncut Gems’.

Now, “Beau Is Afraid” needs to keep up the momentum as it expands nationwide next weekend. This has been a struggle for much of India in post-pandemic times, though A24 has managed to propel films like ‘Everything Everywhere at Once’ and ‘The Whale’ to box office success. But “Tár,” “Triangle of Sadness,” and other blockbusters haven’t been so successful in exploiting massive screen averages — the main measure of platform releases — to strong theatrical performances. Those films faded after struggling to connect with mainstream audiences.

It looks like “Beau Is Afraid” will benefit because A24 and Aster, director of “Midsommar” and “Hereditary,” have built a following. However, the director’s latest project is also his most expensive project to date. “Beau” cost $35 million, so it would need to do more like 2018’s “Hereditary” (which grossed $82 million) than 2019’s “Midsummer” (which grossed $48 million) to be considered a theatrical winner. In comparison, his first two films cost $10 million and $9 million, respectively.

that described one outlet As a “three-hour panic attack,” “Beau Is Afraid” follows an anxious man’s bizarre trip to his hometown to attend his mother’s funeral. The film stars Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Parker Posey and Patti LuPone.

As Aster likely intended, even critics have struggled to fully understand “The Lover Is Afraid”. Rolling Stone critic David Fear He says, “It’s either going to be the scariest comedy or the funniest horror movie of 2023.”