As ‘The Substance’ Opens in Nearly 2,000 Theaters, a Wide Specialized Release Is Oxymoron No More
Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance" ( MUBI ) opens in 1,949 U.S./Canada theaters this week. That's not unusual for a genre film (aging star imbibes youth-enhancing serum, chaos ensues), but it also won best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival and its distributor is the theatrical division of niche streamer MUBI.
In the year 2024, wide is the new platform. "Conclave" (Focus) , "Megalopolis" (Lionsgate) , or "The Apprentice" (Briarcliff) will also go wide between now and the end of October. Pre-COVID, they would most likely debut in a few New York and Los Angeles theaters.
" The Substance " isn't a hard sell for a wider release. There's strong advance interest among cinephiles for the original and gory body-horror story starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. However, it's a first for MUBI.
Launched as a streaming site, MUBI expanded into the U.S. theatrical market in 2016 with very limited releases for films like "The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki." Before "The Substance," its widest release was Ira Sachs' "Passages" in a 2023 platform debut that scaled up to 114 theaters.
MUBI's ability to reach nearly 2,000 theaters requires significant involvement from the top three exhibitors. That's now possible as studios release fewer films, there are fewer long-term hits, and access is a seller's market. There's also the trailblazing success of top specialized independents like A24 ("Civil War") and Neon ("Longlegs"), which can perform at levels far above many wide releases.
Precedents for a film like "The Substance" might include the March 2015 RADiUS-TWC title "It Follows," another female-centric provocative horror release. Opening in four theaters, it yielded a strong $40,000 per-theater average and a total gross of $14 million. The next month, A24 opened "Ex-Machina" in four theaters for a $59,000 PTA and a $25 million gross.
However, platform releases have become a less appealing strategy.
One reason: They don't work as well as they used to. This year, seven films saw PTAs of over $25,000 in their first weekend of platform release; the mark of a great debut is generally regarded as $50,000 or more. Only Searchlight's "Kinds of Kindness" exceeded that mark with $75,000, but none of those films reached $10 million for their full runs. ("Kinds of Kindness" managed $5 million).
The most significant reason for the rise of the wide specialized release is simply because they can. Today, nearly any legitimate distributor can gain access to 2,000 or more theaters. In the past, that concept ranged from challenging to laughable. The platform's more delicate approach aided credibility. Today, a platform debut that falls flat risks its chances for wide release.
Shorter theatrical windows can also make extended expansions awkward. For a top film, a four-week rollout to the widest possible run makes little sense when the PVOD debut might come after three to five weekends.
We've also seen top-performing venues become less lucrative or disappear altogether. In Los Angeles, the Arclight Hollywood and The Landmark are gone; New York lost Lincoln Square. There's other theaters, of course, but they often don't provide the same seating or multiple screens. That can reduce the gross, creating a situation in which perception is reality. Media and exhibitors' impressions impact a film's theatrical and awards futures.
It's also become tougher to gauge a platform release as distributors become adept at "enhancing" the gross with multiple Q&A screenings. Film buyers know this and may discount the results. And for the distributor, that strategy gets complicated with talent appearances and extended marketing expenditures. For all of its scale, a wide release is much simpler.
For "The Substance," IndieWire hears opening-weekend estimates of $3 million-$5 million. One exhibitor suggested that while they didn't expect it to perform at the level of Neon's "Longlegs," it will do enough to generate the all-important word of mouth that also fueled that Nicolas Cage horror hit.
An early Oscar favorite, Edward Berger's papal thriller "Conclave" switched from a November 1 platform, with expansion the following week and wider by Thanksgiving, to a wide debut October 25. That means stars Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci can be one-and-done with their promotions, but as an older-audience film going wide is a riskier move.
Still, what's the alternative? Changing dynamics also makes a platform release dicey and the earlier date means it gets to open before most other top awards titles. Its sole competition among new wide openings is Sony's "Venom: The Last Dance."
Platform releases are still alive and well; upcoming are "A Different Man" (A24), "Saturday Night" (Sony), "Anora" (Neon), "Nightbitch" (Searchlight), and "The Room Next Door" (Sony Pictures Classics). However, the compare-and-contrast of the wide and platform results will have a major impact on future strategies.
