A History of Lars Von Trier at the Box Office
Lars von Trier‘s “Nymphomaniac, Volume I” finally opened in US theaters this past weekend after months of anticipation (and a few weeks of what distributor Magnolia claims has been a “really great” run on VOD). In 25 theaters, the film — which stars von Trier regular Charlotte Gainsbourg as the titular nymphomaniac alongside Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman, and Willem Dafoe — grossed $175,000 for a respectable (given its VOD release and screen count) $7,000 per-theater-average.
How does this stack up compared to von Trier’s previous films? It’s a bit too early to tell (and gets even more tricky because of VOD being involved in such a big way), but we figured — for fun — that we’d take a look back at von Trier’s box office track record Stateside anyway.
The director is known for many things, but box office success in North America is probably not one of them. That said, von Trier has managed a few strong grosses over the years, most notably from 1996’s “Breaking The Waves,” 2000’s “Dancer in the Dark,” and 2011’s “Melancholia,” all of which performed exceptionally well considering their not so marketable subject matter.
Interest surrounding “Nymphomaniac, Volume I” has been very high since news broke it was simply happening, so it will be interesting to see how the film — and its second half — holds up against von Trier’s 30+ year filmography, which is noted — in order of North American box office grosses — in the below gallery:
