We’ll say this about Parasite’s North American distributor Neon: It knows how to strike when the iron is hot. Earlier this month, it expanded the film’s theatrical rollout to 2,000 or so locations, even though it is already available to buy digitally and on Blu-ray, bringing in an extra $5.6 million over this past weekend. Now, Neon is getting ready to squeeze a little more money out of this scholar stone. As reported by Deadline, Neon is giving Parasite a one-week IMAX rollout, with the movie—which won Best Picture, Best International Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director for Bong Joon Ho at the Oscars—opening at 214 IMAX theaters in the U.S. and Canada tomorrow. It’s a somewhat surprising choice, considering there aren’t any exciting vistas or epic action scenes in Parasite, but the look of disgust on Mr. Park’s face will be so much more devastating when it’s the size of a school bus. Rich bastard.
This is all part of a campaign to boost Parasite through the rankings of the highest-grossing foreign language films of all time in the U.S., with the recent theatrical upgrade bumping it to fourth place. If this keeps up, and if this IMAX run makes some money in the next week, it could beat Hero and Life Is Beautiful to take third or second place ($53.7 million and $57.2 million, respectively). Something truly ridiculous would have to happen for it to beat the all-time record, though, which is held by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (it made $128.1 million in 2000).