While “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” will do much of the heavy lifting at the box office with the help of “The Odyssey,” August marks a busy period for the specialty landscape as several films look to find a foothold in the shadow of the two summer tentpoles.

In platform release, two highly anticipated festival titles hit theaters this weekend: “Tony,” Matt Johnson’s biopic starring Dominic Sessa as a 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain, and Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” a meta take on the slasher genre that won the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

“Tony” earned the top per theater average of the weekend as A24 released the film in six theaters in New York and Los Angeles, earning just shy of $349,000 for a per theater average of $58,159. The film will expand to top cities next weekend ahead of a nationwide expansion on August 21.

Based on a chapter of Anthony Bourdain’s star-making memoir “Kitchen Confidential,” “Tony” takes place in Providence in 1975 as a cocky, egotistical 19-year-old Bourdain finds his lifelong passion for cooking when he takes a summer job at a seafood restaurant and gets some tough love education from the restaurant’s owner, played by Antonio Banderas. The film has received strong reviews from critics with a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” was released by Mubi in five theaters in New York and Los Angeles this weekend and made $251,500 for a per theater average of $50,300. By comparison, Jane Schoenbrun’s previous film, the trans surreal drama “I Saw the TV Glow,” grossed $119,015 from its four-theater platform release in May 2024, grossing $5 million in its theatrical run.

The film stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in a story about Kris, an acclaimed queer indie filmmaker who is hired by a studio to revive the long-running 80s slasher film series “Camp Miasma.”

As part of her plan to make the film, Kris encounters Billy Presley, the reclusive former actress who played the final girl in the original “Camp Miasma,” leading to a partnership that becomes intimate…and then psychosexual.

“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” has a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score and is expected to be a hot ticket amongst young Letterboxd users at arthouses across the country as it expands in the coming weeks. This weekend, the film pushed New York’s Angelika Theatre to its best weekend of business since the opening weekend of Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme” in May 2025.

In wider release, a very different kind of slasher also hit theaters this weekend: “Ice Cream Man,” an unrated, self-distributed film from “Hostel” director Eli Roth that marks the launch of his new film label, The Horror Section. The film was released in 1,628 locations and made $2 million this weekend.

Starring Ari Millen as an evil ice cream man who mind controls children with his treats and orders them to kill their parents in an act of revenge, “Ice Cream Man” has been poorly received with a 28% critics and 47% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. But with a production budget of $5.5 million, the film should be a solid launch for The Horror Section as it plans to acquire and release films from up-and-coming horror filmmakers as well as produce future films such as “Don’t Go Into That House, Bitch!”, an upcoming haunted house film with Snoop Dogg attached as producer.

Among holdovers, A24’s “The Invite” is on the verge of reaching $25 million domestically after adding $750,000 in its seventh weekend while Bleecker Street/Crosswalk/LD Entertainment’s proshot presentation of the Broadway musical “Hadestown” has passed $20 million in domestic grosses after three weekends.

Lagging behind is Magnolia Pictures’ “I Want Your Sex,” the sex comedy from director Gregg Araki starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman. Despite strong reviews from its Sundance premiere, the film has only grossed $1.26 million from an initial release in 654 theaters, grossing just $167,000 in its second weekend.

Sunday is family day. So, it just made sense for the 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival to book Paper Tiger, written and directed by James Gray and starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller, for Sunday evening. After all, the loosely autobiographical movie tells the story of a suburban family that becomes entangled with the Russian mob.

Just before the Paper Tiger screening, Gray received the Career Leopard honor from the Swiss festival in a moment that seemed worthy of a big cat pun.

Looking out at the city’s big central square, the Piazza Grande, which seats 8,000 people, the U.S. auteur shared the mix of excitement and nervousness that he was feeling.

“I didn’t expect this crowd. I sort of feel like I’m in the Beatles or something,” he told the big crowd. “This is very strange. I’m very nervous because usually I’m behind the camera and I’m yelling at other people to do things and telling them what to do. And now I’ve got to do some talking. It’s vaguely terrifying.”

Gray also called the experience “very moving,” before resorting to some deadpan humor. “When I told my wife, I said, ‘Hey, they want to give me this prize in Locarno,’” the filmmaker shared. “My wife said, ‘That’s very nice. Now, can you take out the garbage?’”

Continued the U.S. honoree: “So this … gives you a kind of perspective in life. But my wife’s feelings aside, it’s very moving to me.”

Continuing with the family theme, Gray told the Locarno outdoor audience about Paper Tiger: “You’re going to see pretty much where I grew up. A lot of it is autobiographical. You’ll see my neighborhood, and you’ll say, ‘Oh my God.’ Because I got here with this [award], and I came from that.”

Gray also concluded that just because he received this year’s Career Leopard, film fans shouldn’t write him off yet. “I’m not old,” he said. “I have many good films, hopefully, left, and maybe better. So don’t age me out yet.”