Box Office: 'Hateful Eight' 70mm Roadshow Breaks Theater Records

Six theaters across the U.S. saw new records in the first week of Quentin Tarantino's Western.

Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight 70mm roadshow presentation has galloped to house records at several theaters across the country after its first week in theaters.

The Weinstein Co.'s snowy frontier Western, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Walton Goggins, broke records for both its opening weekend and its first full week in the following theaters:

Music Box Chicago ($105,791 for the weekend, $196,358 for the week); Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Ore. ($70,795 weekend, $144,432 for the week); AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Md. ($73,180 weekend and $120,220 week); Boston’s Coolidge Corner Theatre ($60,479 for the weekend, $106,235 week); Somerville Theatre in Somerville, Mass. ($50,544 for the weekend, $88,374 week); and the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz in Austin, Texas ($37,320 weekend and $75,435 for the week).

no longer existed," says Robert Richardson, who captured the film's super-widescreen images with Ultra Panavision 70 lenses that hadn't been used since 1966's 'Khartoum.'"]

The 70mm version of the film, which has been showing in the largest 70mm release in more than 20 years, had a strong opening-weekend debut, earning $4.6 million at 100 venues in 44 U.S. markets. After its first two weeks, its 70mm engagements have grossed $11.2 million for a $112,000 per theater average for the first 12 days.

The top-grossing theaters for the 70mm roadshow include Village East Cinema in New York and the ArcLight Hollywood.

The neo-Western expanded to a total of 2,474 engagements at the beginning of its second weekend on Jan. 1, and its combined 70mm and digital showings have grossed a domestic total of $33.8 million to date.

In order to show the 200-plus pounds of film, old projectors were refurbished and retrofitted into modern theaters, while experienced projectionists were hired to operate the equipment and maintain standards. Released by The Weinstein Co., the 70mm version of The Hateful Eight is a slightly longer version that includes both an overture and a 12-minute intermission.