Cate Shortland’s Lore takes $31,500 at US box office on opening weekend
Australian director Cate Shortland’s film Lore has pulled in $31,498 in its limited US release over the weekend.
The World War Two picture was released across just six theatres in the States, with more to follow.
The film made a decent average of $5,250 per screen.
Liz Watts, the Australian producer of the film told Mumbrella:
“The Friday figures were a little down in New York due to snow but we’re expanding this coming week into more sites including Chicago at two locations from February 14 and an additional 10 locations from March 1 across Washington, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland and Detroit.”
“Generally, the overwhelming majority of critical reviews and blogs have been brilliant and supportive; from Kenneth Turan at the LA Times to the New York Observer,” she added.
Lore is an adaptation of Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room, about Lore, a young German girl who must get her four younger siblings to her grandmother on the other side of the country at the tail end of WWII.
Distributed by Music Box Films, Watts said: “Music Box have done a really effective campaign for this film which started with the submission at the end of last year as Australia’s foreign Oscar submission. They also used a lot of online presence and blogging.”
Locally, Lore was distributed by Paramount/Transmission, and made $296,762 at the box office.
The film is primarily German-spoken. Released in Germany, it made $225,864 over a three week run in November, according to Box Office Mojo, the international box office monitoring service.
The film is released is released in France and the UK on February 22.
The film is a co-production between Australia, Germany and the UK and produced Watts for Porchlight Films, British producer Paul Welsh and German producers Karsten Stoter and Benny Drechsel.
Lore was picked up by Music Box Films in April last year. At the time, Watts told Mumbrella. “I’ve not worked with Music Box before, but we’re keen to be in their catalogue. They’ve done a lot of foreign films, they did the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films release. They’re very good at the boutique handling of foreign films in the US.”
Saskia Rosendahl won a recent Best Young Actor award at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Awards for her portrayal of Lore.
Watts is producing David Michod’s film The Rover, currently shooting in South Australia.
Lore screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last year.
Shortland previously directed the Australian movie Somersault.
