A remarkable initial box office performance has given a substantial awards push to Asif Kapadia’s documentary about the late singer Amy Winehouse.
Amy, which has earned five-star reviews and picked up strong word-of-mouth since premiering at Cannes in May, recorded the biggest ever opening weekend for a British documentary in the UK, and the second biggest (discounting concert films) of all time.
Only Michael Moore’s 2004 polemic, Fahrenheit 9/11, surpassed it; that film went on to take $12m in the UK, a figure Amy is now chasing. The film opened over a remarkably sunny UK weekend in 133 cinemas; from 10 July, that will expand to over 200 – a pre-planned expansion rollout unusual in the UK.
Both the success and the strategy are mimicked in the US, where Amy opened with $222,015 across six sites, with a location average of $37,002 – $10,000 more than Fahrenheit 9/11 managed on its first weekend and even beating March of the Penguins’s $34,373 back in 2005. The film will expand nationwide in the US on 10 July.
