CatVideoFest 2025 has clawed past the $1 million mark, an achievement for the franchise launched in 2016 by filmmaker Will Braden, who apparently does a darn good job curating the best cat videos from across global social media. It was a nice specialty weekend with moderate releases Dead Of Winter and Eleanor The Great and a splash of Rocky Horror. One Battle After Another from Warner Bros. repped the best opening ever for indie auteur Paul Thomas Anderson.
CatVideoFest from Oscilloscope Laboratories saw a $6k weekend on five screens, putting it just over the $1 million mark in North America. The kitty compilation is now international and continues to sell out screenings in new markets with Australia and New Zealand almost doubling revenue to $185k 664 USD. Continue an international expansion in France, Denmark the U.K. and other territories through year end.
“We set out to build on the past successes of CatVideoFest and to make this edition even bigger and we’re thrilled to see the sustained momentum for this year’s edition. We’re proud to hit this mark and to support all our furry feline friends are the many hundreds of charitable partners,” the distributor said. A chunk of proceeds go to local animal shelters, which set up adoption points some in theater lobbies.
Vertical is estimating a $1.05 million three-day cume for debut Dead Of Winter on 605 screens. The well-reviewed thriller starring Emma Thompson trended nicely with a 51% uptick from Friday to Saturday. It played well on the coasts with the AMC Empire and AMC Burbank top locations in NY and LA and strength across San Antonio, Phoenix, San Francisco, Albuquerque, St. Louis and Minneapolis.
The film had a Monday Mystery Movie screening program on 1,100+ screens last week. The story set in Minnesota and shot in Finland, was a first for Thompson who totes a gun while braving a deep freeze.
Sony Pictures Classics’ release of Eleanor The Great opened to $935.6k. on 892 screens. The Cannes-premiering film marking Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut stars the 95-year-old June Squibb, who made a late career box office splash last year with Thelma. The biggest demo was age 40+ and Jewish The film, set in present day, has a Holocaust strand. Top markets are New York, LA, DC, Miami, Boston, Toronto, Philadelphia, Sacramento, Chicago and Dallas.
Documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror directed by Linus O’Brien, from Margot Station with booking support by mTuckman Media, opened in 60 theaters to $40.8k off a hybrid of traditional releases in markets including New York, LA, Chicago and San Francisco, and one-night only shows that mimicked the special engagement experience of the original Rocky Horror from Philadelphia, DC and Minneapolis to smaller markets like Sioux Falls, SD; Portsmouth, NH; Joplin, MO; and Bethel, ME and more.
Timed to the 50th anniversary of the cult film, the doc’s release also marks the kickoff of an even larger national tour of the film, with close to 100 more engagements set to open throughout the month of October as the anniversary celebrations continue. Initially released by 20th Century Fox Studios in 1975 and now owned by Disney, The Rocky Horror Picture Show grossed $136k this weekend at 112 theaters.
They Call Him OG from Prathyangira Cinemas scored a $1.4 million opening weekend and a no. 9 spot on 800 screens, according to Comscore, for a cume through Sunday of close to $5.1 million for the Indian Telugu-language action crime film. Written and directed by Sujeeth Reddy, it stars Pawan Kalyan as a retired gangster who returns to Bombay after a ten year disappearance.
Holdovers: Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale from Focus Features, directed by Simon Curtis and written by franchise creator Julian Fellowes, grossed $3.3 million from 2,829 theaters for an estimated cume to date of $39 million. It’s no. 8 at the domestic box office.
Mubi’s The History of Sound did $89.2k this weekend at 126 locations for a cume of $707k, also in week 3.
The post ‘CatVideoFest 2025’ Pounces On $1 Million; ‘Dead Of Winter’, ‘Eleanor The Great’ Top Indie Debuts — Specialty Box Office appeared first on Deadline.
