The Last Class, a documentary released in two theaters for limited runs on June 27, passed $610k this week, according to distributor Abnorama.
The documentary follows Professor and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who has taught over 40,000 students over the course of 40 years, as he prepares to teach his final class at UC Berkeley. The Wealth and Poverty course is a deep dive into income inequality and the dangers of it to American society.
The film hit $610k after a $12.8k weekend on 16 screens, and has seen extended runs, bring backs, encores, and an interest that’s unusual for documentaries, to the satisfaction of Tom Hassell, Abramorama’s VP of Distribution, director Elliot Kirschner, and producer Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse, the head of Reich’s nonprofit Inequality Media. She founded CoffeeKlatch Productions with The Last Class as its first feature. Josh Melrod is a producer, while Lofthouse and Ian Cheney are EPs.
The film has had around 219 bookings so far, said Hassell. Some highlights include that it played for eight weeks at the Quad in NYC, seven weeks in San Diego, and four weeks at the Nuart in LA. It opened at Rialto Berkeley on July 1 and is still showing. The Portland Museum of Art in Maine is having its biggest September ever on the film.
It skews older and “we’ve had exhibitors raving about what it’s done for their summers, since many of these patrons are back in the building for the first time in years, on top of the box office results,” he shared.
Abramorama announced it acquired North American theatrical rights back in April. The doc faced a wave of rejections from film festivals before making its premiere in mid-June at DC/DOX. Reich’s latest book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, was released in August and topped the New York Times Bestseller List.
“I think people were missing how popular and revered and beloved Robert Reich is,” said Kirschner. The 79-year-old has a large social media following, including 1.32 million on his YouTube channel and 1.4 million on X (formerly Twitter).
Reich has been a longtime critic of Donald Trump, dating back to his first term, and continuing into his second. Kirschner said The Last Class filmmakers “understood the importance of not making it overly political, and giving hope to people.” It’s had hold in both red and blue states.
Reich served as Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and on President-Elect Obama’s transition advisory board. He has written eighteen books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; his bestsellers include The Future of Success, Locked in the Cabinet, Supercapitalism, Aftershock, Beyond Outrage, The Common Good, Saving Capitalism, and The System. He is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine and co-founder of the Economic Policy Institute.
Check out our review of The Last Class here.
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