{"id":596686,"date":"2026-08-18T04:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T04:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/596686\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T04:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T04:42:18","slug":"the-rivals-of-amziah-king-wasnt-a-sleeper-box-office-darling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/596686\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Rivals of Amziah King’ Wasn’t a Sleeper Box Office Darling"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it first premiered at SXSW way back in the spring 2025<\/a>, director Andrew Patterson\u2019s \u201cThe Rivals of Amziah King<\/a>\u201d looked like it could be a future awards contender and major crowdpleaser, a triumphant return to the screen for star Matthew McConaughey<\/a> (for the first time in six years) and an affirmation of rising director Patterson (\u201cThe Vast of Night\u201d). <\/p>\n

But the film<\/a>\u2018s combination of bluegrass-tinged saga and crime film, which followed McConaughey as a singing beekeeper, took some time to find a home and proved to be a harder sell for international audiences, so producer and financier Black Bear<\/a> opted to release \u201cAmziah King\u201d itself.<\/p>\n

\"Hayden<\/a> \"Maggie<\/a> <\/p>\n

The film\u2019s limited opening this past weekend, more than a year after that strong world premiere, was respectable, but not the heralded summer sleeper we may have hoped for.<\/p>\n

With just over $1 million at the domestic box office<\/a> in its opening weekend from 632 theaters, \u201cThe Rivals of Amziah King\u201d failed to crack the domestic Top 10 in a slower mid-August weekend and managed a per-screen-average of $1,625. That put it behind the concert film \u201cKatseye: Wild Hearts\u201d (also in limited release), Bollywood movie \u201cVishwanath & Sons\u201d (which was on even fewer screens), and the tenth anniversary re-release of the popular anime \u201cYour Name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmziah King\u201d is still one of the first releases for Black Bear\u2019s new distribution arm, which also has, to date, put out the Sydney Sweeney boxing biopic \u201cChristy,\u201d Daniel Roher\u2019s \u201cTuner,\u201d and Guy Ritchie\u2019s \u201cIn the Grey.\u201d \u201cChristy\u201d quickly became a punching bag as a major flop from last fall<\/a>, bringing in just shy of $2 million domestic despite a budget of $15 million and the belief that Sweeney could launch that movie into orbit.<\/p>\n

But \u201cTuner\u201d has proven to be a pleasant surprise<\/a>. It opened on just four screens this Memorial Day and had a PSA of $26,105. It did $1.7 million in its second weekend from 452 screens, fewer than \u201cAmziah King\u201d did in its opening. It topped out at $4.51 million domestic, the type of specialized release that clearly benefitted from word of mouth and some light awards chatter.<\/p>\n

Can that still happen with \u201cAmziah King\u201d? The film is unlikely to expand wider next weekend and will ultimately hit a similar screen count to what \u201cTuner\u201d did in its own run, never going above 500 theaters, so it will rely on critics and awards buzz to help it grow. IndieWire\u2019s review wasn\u2019t glowing<\/a> out of last year\u2019s SXSW, but it has a strong Rotten Tomatoes score and a premise that certainly stands out. (In fact, the film\u2019s premise is so unique that comping it to other films would be both tricky and fruitless.)<\/p>\n

Perhaps the best comp is to another Black Bear film that hasn\u2019t come out yet, \u201cWicker,\u201d another starry festival darling with an unusual premise, following a character played by Oscar winner Olivia Colman who falls in love with a man made of wicker. That film has been picking up its own grassroots buzz since it premiered at this year\u2019s Sundance, with people online seeing the first trailer and almost instantly making memes about what it must feel like<\/a> to sleep with essentially a giant basket<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Regardless, some growing pains are to be expected for some of these upstart distributors<\/a>, with everyone from 1-2 Special to Row K (which has certainly had its share of problems<\/a>) trying to thread a needle with smaller films, many of them still with big stars and commercial premises, hoping to find their audience in an unforgiving theatrical market. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rivals of Amziah King\u201d isn\u2019t a flop, but it seems like it\u2019s going to take a bit longer to find its own audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it first premiered at SXSW way back in the spring 2025, director Andrew Patterson\u2019s \u201cThe Rivals of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[32404,2478,93,1043,61,60,3527,270,193088],"class_list":["post-596686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-black-bear","tag-box-office","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-matthew-mcconaughey","tag-movies","tag-the-rivals-of-amziah-king"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}