After just one weekend of international release, “Priscilla” —Sofia Coppola‘s biopic starring Jacob Elordi as Elvis Presley and Cailee Spaeny as The King’s (then) teenage bride “Priscilla” —has already hit several major milestones for arthouse streamer and distributor Mubi.
Produced by Fremantle’s The Apartment, the film currently sits on a box office in excess of $20 million in the U.S., where A24 released the film on Oct. 27. And for Mubi, it’s become its widest theatrical launch ever, with over 1,300 cinemas across the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Latin America, Benelux and Austria. And with an opening weekend box office haul of $4.1 million in those territories, “Priscilla” now looks set to smash the company’s records and overtake Charlotte Wells’ indie hit “Aftersun” to become its biggest release to date.
With over $25 million grossed so far, “Priscilla” will soon likely become Coppola’s third largest commercial success to date, and her biggest in almost two decades, after “Lost in Translation,” which made $117 million, and “Marie Antoinette,” which finished on $60 million.
The success of “Priscilla” is underlining of Coppola as one of the most interesting directors working today and the star power it has ignited beneath the fast-rising careers of both Elordi and Spaeny. The film also marks a major moment in the trajectory of Mubi, founded by London-based auteur-friendly Efe Cakarel in 2007.
Mubi had already earned its status as one of the most aggressive arthouse buyer at recent underwhelming film markets, but it still managed to turn heads with its major multi-territory deal for “Priscilla,” ahead of the Venice Film Festival, where it bowed in competition and won the best actress award for Spaeny.
Less than six months on from the glitzy Venetian world premiere, attended by Coppola, Presley and both Elordi and Spaeny (thanks to an interim agreement),“Priscilla” has a foot in the awards season race. Spaeny landed a Golden Globe nomination (but missed out to Lily Gladstone) and is still in the running for a Gotham Award, while Elordi was recently named a BAFTA Rising Star nominee (and “Priscilla” itself has two slots in the BAFTA Longlists).
For Mubi, with the help of distribution partners in various territories, it has managed to turn its biggest acquisition into box office gold. Although the company generally keeps its cards close to its chest when it comes to figures, PvNew has learned that the total box office has now surpassed $5 million. Of that figure, in the U.K. & Ireland, where Mubi initially platformed the film on 35mm on a handful of screens on Dec. 26 before expanding to 260 cinemas on Jan. 1, the film has reached $2 million, the highest opener for a Coppola film. It’s a similar story in Latin America, where the film has taken $1.7 million, Mubi’s best to date. Mexico accounted for $1.2 million of that figure, “Priscilla” becoming Coppola’s best opening in the country so far. And in Germany and Austria, the combined box office stands at almost $700k (it’s Coppola’s highest German opening since “Lost in Translation”).
Launching on Boxing Day in the U.K., a date often reserved for big auteur releases (and this year saw it release the same day as both Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” and Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron”), may seem a bold strategy. It’s one that bestows a certain degree of confidence in the film and filmmaker. And, for Mubi, it’s paid off. With the film expanding from 260 to 460 cinemas in its second weekend, a figure that will see its global screen count near 1,500, the box office looks easily set to surpass the $6.59 million Mubi took across its territories for “Aftersun” (the film made $12 million globally in total and remains Mubi’s most viewed film on its streaming platform).
“After the great results in the U.S., it makes me really happy and proud to see that Sofia and this movie are receiving all this attention and love around the world,” Lorenzo Mieli, CEO of The Apartment told PvNew in a statement. “And a lot of this comes from the wonderful job Mubi and The Match Factory have done and are doing. The care and enthusiasm they have put into the distribution and release of the movie has been unparalleled.”
Alongside “Aftersun,” recent Mubi hits have included Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave” ($3.38 million in the U.K and U.S, where it become director’s highest grossing North American release), Ira Sach’s “Passages,” ($1.2 million across Mubi territories) Aki Kaurismaki’s Oscar-shortlisted and Golden Globe-nominated “Fallen Leaves” ($1.45 million so far in Mubi territories), and the Molly Manning Walker’s Un Certain Regard-winning and BAFTA longlisted “How to Have Sex” ($572k so far, but due for U.S. release at Sundance). “Priscilla” may be about to become its highest grossing film to date, but with a major production drive underway (last year it announced “Rosebushpruning,” starring Kristen Stewart, Josh O’Connor and Elle Fanning) and no sign of its hyperactive market activities calming down soon, Mubi’s ambitions are unlikely to stop there.
