A Banned 1971 Film Made $1.6 Million Behind a Billboard That Cost $600

The loudest new movie of the weekend was not the new movie. It was a 1971 film that used to be a problem for censors, back in 350 theaters with an NC-17 sticker and a marketing budget that sounds like a prank.

Ken Russell’s The Devils, the first release from the Warner Bros genre label Clockwork, did about $1.64 million over three days. Friday alone was about $750,000. Three hundred and fifty screens works out near $4,700 each, which Deadline called solid. In the same chart, Tom Cruise’s Digger, still sinking in weekend three, managed about $710,000 from 786 theaters. The old possession picture, on fewer than half the screens, outgrossed the new movie star.

The detail that makes the weekend is the billboard. Deadline’s understanding is that the biggest marketing spend on the re-release was a single board, around $600. No national television buy, no tie-in meal, no late-night host holding a prop. An NC-17 from 1971 does not need to be explained to the people who already know the title. It needs a listing and a room that will book it.

Clockwork is a strange first card to play: a re-release, a rating most chains spent decades treating like a stain, and a per-screen number that would make a lot of new films jealous. The Devils is not suddenly a hit in the Street Fighter sense. It is proof that a notorious old movie, parked in a few hundred theaters, can still beat a star vehicle that has already been explaining itself for two weeks.