Some good news for Peter Farrelly's "I Play Rocky."
Here’s EmpireCity Box Office reporting that presales for the Amazon MGM release are looking mighty fine ahead of its November 20 nationwide expansion. The caveat is how wide Amazon decides to go. If the film gets into 2,500+ locations, a $20M+ opening is very much on the table.
If Amazon is listening, and it should be, the move is obvious: go as wide as possible on this one. Nothing to lose, especially with the film’s budget only being $25M.
A big opening would only help the film's Oscar chances, which have been growing by the day. At this point, why wouldn't "I Play Rocky" get a Best Picture nomination? It's got everything it needs to make that happen.
None of this surprises me. I've been saying for weeks that this is the crowd-pleaser of the season. Fall festival audiences embraced it wholeheartedly, even as a certain contingent of critics seemed determined to knock it down, some of them clearly still nursing a grudge over "Green Book." Presales are the first real sign that regular moviegoers aren't paying attention to that noise. They love Rocky (and Rocky loves them back).
The wide release lands right on top of the 50th anniversary of the original "Rocky," which opened November 21, 1976, and heads straight into Thanksgiving, when families will be primed for a sincere, old-school underdog story about a broke actor who refuses to sell his script unless he gets to star in it.
Of course, "The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping" opens the same day. It's currently tracking for a $120M+ opening and is going to eat up a lot of screens. All the more reason for Amazon to fight for every location it can get.
Your move, Amazon.
The book has already been adapted twice, by two filmmakers who mean a lot to Hamaguchi. Naruse turned it into "The Stranger Within a Woman" in 1966, and Chabrol made "Just Before Nightfall" in 1971.