Indie films helped drive a terrific box office weekend with Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma from Mubi a standout. The edgy director with a dedicated fan base of her own tapped the youthful audience that flocked to Obsession and Backrooms as well as fans of the The X-Files (Gillian Anderson stars), the imprimatur of a Cannes premiere and some of the best reviews of the year for a horror film to drive a stellar limited expansion.

Emmy-winning Hannah Einbinder (Hacks) also stars in the unconventional reimagining of the slasher genre that grossed $907k at 54 theaters in week 2 for a cume of $1.28 million.

“We are seeing more and more fans attracted to this film,” along with a surge in its social media profile, said Mubi distribution chief Mark Boxer. “It’s not one thing. It’s an original film. Jane’s fan base is growing. And there’s the Gillian factor.”

Mubi released it to a mix of traditional arthouses and commercial multiplexes, expanding in NY and LA and adding the top 15 U.S. markets with sold-out shows across locations and day parts — from lunchtime to midnight, he said. It will likely move to circa 500 screens next week.

The film is joined by a truly eclectic mix of indies from Tony and SIX: The Musical Live! (both Focus Features); Trafalgar’s Katseye: Wild Hearts; Angel Studios’ The Brink Of War; The Rivals Of Amziah King from Black Bear; Gkids’ rerelease of Your Name; Neon’s Wrong Girls; and Indian telugu opening Vishwanath & Sons from Shloka Entertainment.

Watermelon Pictures’ documentary American Doctor opened to a notable $40k at the Angelika in NYC, the highest per-screen average for a documentary since The Encampments, also from Watermelon, debuted to a PSA double that in March of 2025.  

Janus Films’ release of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Samurai And The Prisoner grossed $111k at 78 theaters in week 3 for a cume of over $500k.

A rough tally shows at least $16 million, or 10% of the $160 million estimated weekend box office (as per Rentrak), coming from indie and specialty titles.

“That’s a meaningful share for this market, and these films must be credited for generating solid box office and as important contributors to this blockbuster filled summer season,” says Paul Dergarabedian, box office expert and the firm’s head of marketplace trends.

“What’s particularly notable is the breadth and depth of these specialty titles … coming from a mix of indie/specialty, event cinema, international/local-language and other alternative programming rather than one single breakout title,” he adds. Those have become rarer in the indie world due to shifts in the moviegoing public, a crowded market and a dearth of pure arthouse cinemas.

Moderate and wide releases: Trafalgar Releasing’s KATSEYE: Wild Hearts music event film opened to no. 5 at the box office with an estimated $4 million from 724 theaters.

It was followed by Focus Features’ SIX: The Musical Live! at $3 million in 1,462 theaters, and Angel Studios’ latest, Brink of War, with $2.684 million from 2,083 locations.

Shloka’s Vishwanath & Sons rounded out the top ten with $1.635 million from 350 theaters.

Your Name: 10th Anniversary from GKids landed at $1.58 million on 675 screens.

Black Bear’s Matthew McConaughey-starring The Rivals of Amziah King debuted to $1.027 million at 632 theaters.

A24’s Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony continued in limited release in week 2, grossing a super $707k from 37 screens for a domestic cume of $1.2 million.

Neon’s The Wrong Girls opened with $406.5k at 520 theaters

Elijah Peel from eKKL Entertainment, executive producers Willie and Korie Robertson (Duck Dynasty, The Blind), debuted to $251k at 535 locations.

Limited: Oscilloscope Pictures’ Union County opened with $68.5k at 10 theaters. Its presentation of CatVideoFest 2026 is eyeing $143k in week 2 for an $800k cume.

Flaco the owl documentary Wild Inside from Sandbox Films added $28k on 37 screens for a 10-day cume of $170k.

Octavia Spencer has been following true crime stories since she was just 11 years old.

Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders: The Nominees Studio, Spencer said, “I think there are a lot of people who are very new to the true crime genre. I’m not, I’ve been studying it. I read a horrible story, a true crime story, when I was 11 and I think it made an indelible mark on me.”

Spencer is Emmy-nominated for narrating the true crime Lost Women docuseries, which gives voice to murdered and disregarded women. She was previously Emmy-nominated for Lost Women of Highway 20 and now, with Lost Women of Alaska, the producer and narrator tells the story of a series of brutal, underreported crimes against indigenous women in Alaska.

Watch the Contenders conversation below, and scroll down for more photos from the event.

“We had a brilliant filmmaker in Christina Douglas,” Spencer said, “so I chose to not view the footage as it was being assembled. And I waited until everything was assembled and it was easier then, because the stories were so haunting, but they were also very empowering. So, I was able to imbue the narrative with what I felt that was being portrayed on screen.”

RELATED: Contenders Television: The Nominees Studio – Deadline’s Complete Coverage

Spencer had founded production company Orit Entertainment in 2019. She said, “I thought it was the right time for Orit to explore these stories and to try to offer closure. And ‘closure’ is such a strange word, because when you lose a loved one so violently, when you lose a loved one and you don’t have any idea what happened to them, I doubt that you can get closure. But at least to resolve what happened to some of these women, I felt it was incumbent upon me as a citizen of the world to be a part of that, having that access and allowing the families to have access to resources. And Lost Women of Highway 20 and now of Alaska is a small means to do so.”

Spencer says filmmaker Douglas wanted to very much focus mostly on the women rather than talking about the criminals. “Christina Douglas, our director who also happens to be a woman of indigenous descent, suggested, and we also agree, that maybe we focus on the narrative and not name the criminal as much, but say the names of the women as many times as possible and showcase the family members who were coming forward, and re-engage the narrative to be about the women whose voices were stolen.”

In working through the material and preparing to literally give voice to the women with her narration, Spencer said, “I still feel rage because these women were still being targeted and there was a suspect right out there in the open. When we look at Alaska, this man left his home country because he knew that he could go to Alaska and do all of these criminal acts and have less visibility. Think about that. We go on vacation to get away and to think that someone targeted a specific community to commit crimes, and then it was actually bolstered by the fact that the police did not investigate… There were over 1300 missing women from the indigenous community and very little law enforcement help. There were systemic failures, not only with police department, but within a society that would even allow this to happen.”

Spencer hinted that her next installment of the Lost Women series might look at Hollywood. “I don’t know if that’s happening, but we’ll see,” she said. “Sadly, there are so many places that we could go, so many women who’ve been harmed.”

Following his transformation for The Smashing Machine, Dwayne Johnson is back together with Benny Safdie for their next project.

While speaking to Deadline on Sunday at D23, the Golden Globe nominee revealed that he’s begun production on the Safdie-helmed Lizard Music, for which he undergoes “five hours of makeup every day” to play a man in his 70s.

“We’re in full production. It’s called Lizard Music, I’m with Benny Safdie again. That’s my guy,” he said. “Imagine Willy Wonka but from the mind of Benny Safdie.

Johnson continued, “And I play a septuagenarian man. Now, I didn’t know what the hell that meant. So, I had to Google it, it means you’re in your 70s. So, we transform, and it’s five hours of makeup every day. We’re with Kazu Hiro, who is a legend in Hollywood. He was also nominated for Smashing Machine, for our prosthetics, and he is helping me transform.

“So far, we’re in our second week, and it has already been an unbelievable experience. It’s that thing I was telling the kids, ‘Run towards that thing.’ This is that thing that I ran towards and chased the challenge, and this was a challenge for me. I love Benny, he’s one of my best friends and most embraced collaborators, so I can’t wait for you to see it,” said Johnson.

As Deadline exclusively announced the film based on Daniel Pinkwater’s novel, Safdie told us us that Lizard Music is about “a kid who discovers an island of lizards that are sentient, and they play music, they have broadcast TV. And they want him to come and see them. And he teams up with the Chicken Man, who Dwayne plays, and they go on this adventure to find the land of the lizards.”

“[Johnson] was just talking about how he was slimming down,” said Safdie, after the actor revealed at Toronto International Film Festival that he was undergoing another transformation for the role.

Last October, Amazon MGM Studios’ United Artists scooped up Lizard Music, which is written and directed by Safdie, following his and Johnson’s work together on A24’s The Smashing Machine last year.