Ruth Negga's Oscar contender, Loving, has opened strong in the US on a limited release, grossing $169k.
The film opened in four theatres in New York and San Francisco taking in a per screen average $42,250. The opening compares favourably with The Theory of Everything, which launched on the same weekend two years ago and took in a screen average of $41,753.
To put these numbers in perspective, Marvel's Doctor Strange, which topped the US Box Office over the weekend, took just $21,893 per screen, albeit from 3,822 North American screens.
Directed by Midnight Special's Jeff Nichols, Loving tells the story of Mildred and Richard Loving, who were arrested and sentenced to prison in Virginia in 1958 for violating interracial marriage laws and later sued the state in a landmark civil rights case in the Supreme Court.
The film stars Negga as Mildred Loving and has been generating a lot of awards buzz, particularly for the Limerick native who's widely tipped to land an Oscar nomination for her role. Joel Edgerton, Nick Kroll and Michael Shannon round out the cast.
Via The Wrap
