Sean Baker’s new film Anora had the highest per-screen average of 2024, with $90,000 on six screens for a total gross of $540,000.
The film had the number one per-screen average at all six locations, which included The Lincoln Center, Angelika and Alamo Brooklyn in New York, and, in Los Angeles, the Grove, Century City and Burbank, according to Deadline.
Anora is featured on the cover of the latest print issue of MovieMaker Magazine, featuring a conversation with Baker and star Mikey Madison in the cover story.
The comedy-drama stars Madison as the titular character, Anora, a sex worker from Brooklyn whose friends call her Ani. She gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she marries an oligarch’s son. But when her new husband’s family in Russia finds out, they come to New York to try to get the marriage annulled.
Per-screen averages are relevant because they demonstrate how much money a movie makes on each screen it’s played on in movie theaters. These averages are used to help theaters decide whether to keep showing a movie.
“We’re incredibly excited about this weekend’s record-breaking results and the fantastic critical and audience response to Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning film Anora. Baker is a singular director who truly understands the power of the theatrical experience and how important it is for films to be seen in the theater,” a spokesperson for Neon told Deadline. “With Mikey Madison in her unparalleled performance as Anora, and the film’s strong awards potential, there’s no doubt it will continue to captivate a broad audience as we move into the fall.”
More About Sean Baker’s Anora
The film has the second-highest post-pandemic per-scren average following Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, and is among the top five per-screen averaging movies of the last five years including Neon and Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, A24 and Netflix’s Uncut Gems, and Searchlight’s The Favorite.
The film is written, directed and produced by Sean Baker. Other producers include Alex Coco and Samantha Quan. Other cast in addition to Madison include Mark Eydelshteyn, Yuriy Borisov, Karren Karagulian and Vache Tovmasyan.
In May, the film won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, one of the highest achievements in cinema, capping more than a decade of Sean Baker films that directly or indirectly address sex work — from 2012’s Starlet to 2015’s Tangerine to 2017’s The Florida Project to 2021’s Red Rocket.
Madison is a fast-rising, L.A.-born actress very open to cinematic extremes — her characters were set on fire in both 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, 2022’s Scream. She has also appeared in television series like Pamela Adlon’s FX drama Better Things and Apple TV+’s drama-thriller Lady in the Lake alongside Moses Ingram and Natalie Portman. Her other credits include 2023’s Scream VI and 2015’s Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey.
Also Read: In Anora, Sean Baker and Mikey Madison Focus on the Work in Sex Work
Born and raised in the New York City suburb of Summit, New Jersey, the son of a teacher and attorney, Baker attended NYU for film school and became known for DIY, bootstrap, low-budget filmmaking with his 2000 debut Four Letter Words, a blunt, comic look at the lives of young suburban males.
He followed it with Take Out, which he co-wrote and directed with Shih-Ching Tsou, who has since produced his films. Take Out was Baker’s first movie about work, the story of an undocumented Chinese immigrant and delivery man played by Charles Jang.
Baker became a hero of DIY moviemaking with Tangerine, about a transgender sex worker named Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) who goes on a journey through L.A. in search of her cheating boyfriend. Set around the holidays, it is currently No. 4 on Rotten Tomatoes’ list of the 100 Best Christmas Movies of All Time.
Anora is currently at an impressive 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, where it is certified fresh.
Anora is currently in theaters.
Main Image: Mikey Madison in Anora, Neon.