Stephen King, one of the unquestioned masters of horror, has found himself once again in the top ten at the box office thanks to director Mike Flanagan’s latest adaptation of his work. The Life of Chuck, which hails from NEON, expanded into more than 1,000 theaters this past weekend giving the long-awaited film its first taste of a wide release. Despite heavy competition, it did pretty well for itself.
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The Life of Chuck pulled in $2.1 million on 1,072 screens across the U.S., making for a solid 2,000 per-screen average. NEON previously released the film on 16 screens the weekend prior to help build some buzz for the adaptation of King’s novella of the same name. The film has been met with a great response from critics and audiences alike. The hope now is that it translates to meaningful word of mouth in the weeks to come.
The film is billed as the extraordinary story of an ordinary man. It celebrates the life of Charles ‘Chuck' Krantz as he experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss and the multitudes contained in all of us. Tom Hiddleston (Loki) leads the absolutely stacked cast, which also includes Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange), Karen Gillan (Oculus) and Mark Hamill (Star Wars).
NEON purchased the rights to The Life of Chuck late last year and decided to wait until June to give the film a prime, summer release. That was a tremendous show of faith for Flanagan’s latest, with the filmmaker having previously tackled Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game, so far as King’s work goes. The only problem is that competition can be fierce in the summer, with DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon ($83.7 million) dominating the conversation this past weekend. Meanwhile, A24’s Materialists ($12 million) also did quite well for itself, pulling in lots of the adult crowd.
The studio clearly has big ambitions for this film and, perhaps, even eyes on major awards season nominations later this year. In that way, a fall release might have made more sense, but that would have meant holding not the film even longer. The concern is that it might run the risk of getting buried as other big releases such as 28 Years Later and Jurassic World Rebirth, among others, arrive in the coming weeks. For now though, it’s a good start.
The Life of Chuck is in theaters now. For more, check out FANGORIA’s 7th annual Pride shirt from Fight-Rags.
