‘The Card Counter’ First Fall Fest Title In An Arthouse Market Whose Chips Are Down – Specialty Preview:

Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter moves from Venice into 579 theaters this weekend — the first in a welcome stream of specialty films from the Lido, Telluride and Toronto that could, perhaps maybe, buck up the struggling arthouse market this fall. The film is 90% certified fresh and hails from Focus Features, which presented one of the rare specialty hits of recent months, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain.

That film came out in mid-July before the Delta Variant reached full sweep. It was released on nearly double the number of screens.

The Card Counter stars Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish and Tye Sheridan. William Tell (Isaac) a military interrogator haunted by his past just wants to play cards. But his spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he’s approached by Cirk (Sheridan), a vulnerable, angry young man seeking help to get revenge on a military colonel (Willem Dafoe). Tell sees a chance at redemption through Cirk but ends up being dragged back into the darkness of his past. Haddish plays La Linda, Tell’s financial backer and love interest. Deadline review here.

Delta has made it harder to draw out the older arthouse demo, many opting to avoid theaters until there’s more visibility on the virus. “Labor Day was pretty exciting with Shang-Chi but that doesn’t immediately translate to the audience that Landmark theaters relies on,” said one indie distributor, referring to the Disney/Marvel hit and the arthouse theater chain.

The 2021 summer box office is now at about 60% of 2019. But arthouse ticket sales this year may be at 35% — maybe lower, he said. There was a brief glimmer of hope at the time of Road Runner, but the older arthouse audience “is highly cognizant of the trends in this pandemic,” he added. Suburban arthouses have been hit the hardest.

If the Delta Variant peaks and there’s no surge, the story could shift, especially with the list of films rolling out. The more product, the better. Dune and Spencer (also in Venice), King Richard and Cyrano (Telluride), The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Dear Evan Hansen (Toronto) roll out between now and year end, as do Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, Warner Bros’ Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark and Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast.

The Card Counter trailer is linked below.

Speaking of Delta, Fauci from National Geographic Films (one of four docs NatGeo brought to Telluride this month), offers a glimpse into infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci who has led the U.S. fight against epidemics from AIDS to SARS to Ebola and now Covid. Directed by John Hoffmann and Janet Tobias, the film is requiring all presenting theaters to have vaccine mandates, including in markets that don’t yet have city-wide ordinances in place where theaters there are implementing the policy separately or, in some cases, specifically for Fauci.

The Angelika Film Center, for instance, is playing Fauci in NYC and in DC, and is also doing two full-day take-overs next week at their Sacramento and Fairfax VA locations – playing the film on every screen in each complex, and requiring proof of vaccination for that day only.

Fauci is executive produced by Dan Cogan (Icarus) and Liz Garbus (What Happened, Miss Simone, The Farm: Angola, USA).

Other docs opening include The Alpinist from Roadside Attractions in 173 theaters and The Capote Tapes from Greenwich Entertainment on about 30 screens. The former is an intimate portrait of climber Marc-Andre Leclerc, a young, visionary and gifted climber. From Peter Mortimer, the Telluride 2020 film uses never-before-seen footage of the elusive climber’s breathtaking ascents.

View this article and the trailer at Deadline.