The comedy-drama film A Real Pain, directed by and starring Jesse Eisenberg, might not be competing with the big guns, but it is certainly holding its own at the box office. After only playing in theaters for a little under a month (it spent two weeks in very limited release), the movie has passed couple of milestones as it heads towards the two-digit mark globally. The film is jostling for space among several other dramas aimed at adult audiences.
Only recently, films such as We Live in Time and Conclave delivered splendid commercial performances, grossing over $50 million between the two of them. Sean Baker’s Anora has also emerged as a major hit with over $20 million worldwide, in addition to becoming the biggest film of the filmmaker’s career. Sure, there have been duds like Robert Zemeckis’ Here and Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, but it’s too early to say which side A Real Pain will land on.
The film has now made over $5 million domestically and over $6 million worldwide. It opened earlier this month in just four locations and delivered one of the year’s top per-theater averages. The following week, it expanded into 12 locations. The week after that, into over 1,000 theaters. In its fourth week, A Real Pain made just around $1 million domestically. A Real Pain premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize — Dramatic. Eisenberg won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.
This is Jesse Eisenberg’s second film as director, after the comedy-drama film When You Finish Saving the World, starring Finn Wolfhard and Julianne Moore. The movie was released day-and-date on VOD platforms in 2022 and didn’t make much of a commercial impression. It earned mixed reviews and sits at a borderline “fresh” 61% approval rating on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. A Real Pain, on the other hand, holds an astonishing 96% score on RT.
Eisenberg, best known for his Oscar-nominated performance in The Social Network, stars alongside Kieran Culkin, who rose to incredible fame following his acclaimed performance in HBO’s Succession. They play the mild-mannered David and the free-spirited Benji, two Jewish American cousins who go on a tour to Poland to reconnect with their roots.
A Real Pain is in theaters now.
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