In the game of per-screen average at the box office, Tokyo!, an independent film in limited release, beat out Watchmen this weekend, pulling in $21,000 at a single theater.
Watchmen may have been number one at the box office overall, but its per-theater average of $15,413 (in 3,611 theaters) only ranked second behind the Vitagraph Films release.
Like New York Stories and Paris Je T’aime, Tokyo! tells multiple stories (all by different directors) about modern urban living and asks the question of whether people shape a city or if a city shapes them.
Directors Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Leos Carax (Lovers on the Bridge) and Bong Joon-ho (The Host) each tackle a third of the movie to tell their tales in three unrelated segments (“Interior Design,” “Merde” and “Shaking Tokyo”), and their fervent fan following may have been a factor in the movie’s opening weekend success.
Tokyo!, which is showing at New York’s Sunshine Cinema, will expand to more theaters this weekend, opening in Chicago and Los Angeles as well.