The Last Ha

Among the arthouse crowd Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig's Frances Ha is doing well, having grossed $134,000 last weekend in four theatres.  It'll be interesting to see how it does when it goes wide (or at least wider), since I don't think the episodic tale of a young woman trying to get her life together, shot in black and white, is a conventional crowdpleaser--at least not for the mainstream audience.

The numbers look good, but the film actually averaged a bit less per theatre than Baumbach's last (which also featured Gerwig), Greenberg.  Yet that film only ended up with a domestic gross of a bit over $4 million (and considerably less foreign)--perhaps not bad for an art film, but not exactly a breakout, especially considering it was a comedy starring Ben Stiller.

Baumbach's film before that, Margot At The Wedding, starring Nicole Kidman, didn't quite make $2 million.  His biggest film, The Squid And The Whale, made over $7 million. Baumbach gets to keep making movies, but he's not exactly in Wes Anderson's league, whose last film, Moonrise Kingdom made over $45 million, while a disappointment like The Darjeeling Limited made almost $12 million and did considerably better overseas.

So will Frances Ha top Greenberg? The Squid And The Whale? Will it be Baumbach's first to break $10 million.  To be continued.