The Julianne Moore-Annette Bening
lesbian moms flick The Kids Are Alright held onto its strong
opening sales over the weekend with the highest gross per-screen
average.
Now in its third week, the film
averaged $13,174 per screen after adding 163 additional screens on
Friday to beat out Leonardo DiCaprio's dreamy Inception, which
trailed at $11,473, according to website BoxOfficeMojo.com.
The Kids opened with the highest
gross per theater for any movie released so far this year, $72,127
per theater, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In writer-director Lisa Cholodenko's
The Kids, the family dynamics of long-term lesbian
couple Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) is altered in
unexpected ways when their teenage children seek out Paul (played by
42-year-old Mark Ruffalo), their biological father, whose anonymously
donated sperm impregnated the women.
Critics loved the film – “Approaches
perfection” gushed USA Today – and audiences appear to
agree.
The film also had strong Saturday
matinee sales, suggesting a broader appeal than the art house crowd.
Good news for Cholodenko, who said the film is careful to represent
the two mom family “in a way that was just completely acceptable,
average and familiar.”
But the real test of its crossover
appeal comes next weekend when Focus Features, which acquired the
independent movie at the Sundance Film Festival for a reported $4.8
million, expands the film into 500-600 additional theaters.