A Documentary About Concrete Is One Art House's Second-Biggest Weekend in 21 Years
John Wilson's The History of Concrete grossed $90,000 in three days at New York's IFC Center, Deadline reports — the theater's top documentary opening and its second-highest weekend gross in 21 years, behind only Parasite, which took $119,000 in 2019. Nearly every available ticket sold for the entire weekend, including shows added on Saturday afternoon.
The disproportion is the fun of it. Of everything a 21-year-old art house has put on a screen, exactly one film has had a bigger weekend — and the building's documentary record now belongs to a movie about pavement.
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Worth separating the two records: $90k is the best documentary opening this theater has seen, while Parasite's $119k is the best weekend of any kind.
Which makes the documentary number the odder one — it beat every other nonfiction release in the building's 21 years and still finished second overall.