Birdman will open in even more theaters next weekend due to surprisingly great box office success this past weekend, despite only playing at around 231 locations.
Fox Searchlight, the distributor for Birdman, announced that they will expand the movie, starring Michael Keaton, from 231 movie theaters to around 450 for the upcoming weekend.
“We believe we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as far as commercial theaters are concerned,” Frank Rodriguez, the senior vice president of distribution at Fox Searchlight, told Variety. “The whole time we started out on this journey, we knew we’d grab the art house and specialty markets, but now there are indications that we can cross over to a lot of theaters.”
Although Birdman is creating lots of positive buzz on social media and has soaring reviews on Rotten Tomatoes with 94 percent, the film will take on the challenging task of going up against two other popular films that premiere next week, Christopher Nolan's Insterstellar and Disney's Big Hero 6.
Birdman is the new film from Babel director Alejandro G. Inarritu and finds Keaton as a former action movie star hoping to mount a Broadway show. Emma Stone and Edward Norton also star.