The Whale has been talked about for months, with plenty of discussion surrounding Brendan Fraser’s transformation, his Oscar-tipped performance, and some controversy.
The film is only now being released, coming out on December 9 in a select number of cinemas in New York and Los Angeles. Although on a small scale, the film has broken a box office record.
As reported by Deadline, The Whale has set the record for the biggest limited opening weekend of 2022, having made $360,000 from six cinemas, making for an average of $60,000 per venue.
The previous holder of the record for this year was Everything Everywhere All at Once, which also came from A24.
Could The Whale go on to overtake Everything Everywhere as the studio’s highest grossing film overall once it gets its full release? We’ll have to wait and see what happens when it drops in more cinemas on December 21, although Deadline notes that it will be quite a “moderate” rollout.
Director Darren Aronofsky recently spoke out against the backlash over Fraser’s casting, explaining why he didn’t cast a man who was already the size that main character Charlie is.
“There was a chapter in the making of this film where we tried to research actors with obesity,” he said.
“Outside of not being able to find an actor who could pull off the emotions of the role, it just becomes a crazy chase. Like, if you can’t find a 600-pound actor, is a 300-pound actor or 400-pound actor enough?”
“From a health perspective, it’s prohibitive,” he added, referring to the film’s intense production. “It’s an impossible role to fill with a real person dealing with those issues.” (DigitalSpy)