While this weekend’s major box-office competition was between monsters, minions and stale comedians, perhaps the biggest success story was a film that opened in around half-a-dozen theaters. After debuting at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year — where it went to pick up the tops awards for both the juries and audience — Fruitvale Station took in an impressive $377,000 from just 7 theaters for a $53,857 average.
Director Ryan Coogler recently stopped by The Film Society at Lincoln Center to discuss his debut, which follows the true story of Oscar Grant (played by Michael B. Jordan), whose life was taken by a police officer in Oakland, California on New Year’s Day 2009. The full talk has now been put online, which features Coogler discussing where he was on the day of the shooting, how he got into filmmaking, and much, much more.
We’ve also got an extensive discussion for another Sundance premiere which also saw a release this past weekend. We recently shared our interviews with Michael Cera, Gaby Hoffmann and Sebastian Silva on their drug trip comedy Crystal Fairy and now two-thirds of the trio also stopped by Lincoln Center to talk their project and one can view the conversation below, following the Fruitvale talk conducted by Eugene Hernandez.
Fruitvale Station and Crystal Fairy will expand in the coming weeks.