Chloe Okuno’s feature debut Watcher recorded the biggest opening weekend grosses ever for IFC Films and its IFC Midnight/Shudder label on 764 U.S.
screens — also one of the distributor’s widest ever releases.The genre thriller that world premiered at Sundance then SXSW reported an estimated weekend gross of $815,000 and a PSA of $1,067.“Watcher is one of the best feature debuts we have ever screened out of Sundance and with it, Chloe Okuno has proven without a doubt that she is a leading new voice in horror,” said IFC Film president Arianna Bocco. “We are thrilled to have been her partner on the release of Watcher and remain committed to finding the best new voices working in film today.”Witten by Zack Ford and Okuno, Watcher stars Maika Monroe as Julia, a young American actress who moves with her half-Romanian husband (played by Karl Glusman) from the States to Bucharest for his big new marketing job.
Lonely and at loose ends, she notices a mysterious stranger (Burn Gorman) watching her often from an apartment window across the street, as a serial killer called The Spider stalks the city.
Deadline review here. Bocco said IFC decided to give the film a push on as many screens as possible over the next three weeks before it hit VOD on June 21.It was a solid weekend for indie fare.
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