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Before his film “If I Go Will They Miss Me” found a distributor, director Walter Thompson-Hernandez was already developing a title treatment and ideas for marketing materials on how to position his film. He had a clear sense of his audience and fan base in place, and it was important that he work with the right team to get the film out there.
Now, months away from its premiere at Sundance 2026, “If I Go Will They Miss Me” has found a bigger audience than perhaps its director or distributor, Rich Spirit, ever could. The film has surpassed $1 million at the domestic box office over five weeks in theaters, going as wide as 251 screens. It opens digitally for PVOD rentals on October 23, but the film has garnered enough demand and word of mouth that it will remain in some independent theaters in limited release for longer.
James Shani, the founder of Rich Spirit, said that the film when he saw it at Sundance was “undeniable” and that it had a clear audience with the African American population that is often lacking at the box office. But it was in an environment where other companies were not taking bets on these types of films.
“I really believed that this story and this film was unique and progressive, and what Walter and the team did is something that takes stories and takes situations that are not painted with the traditional tropes,” Shani told IndieWire about the film’s box office success.
The film stars J. Alphonse Nicholson and Danielle Brooks and follows a 12-year-old boy who tries to reconnect with his estranged father after serving time in prison. So it is a film about fatherhood and community, but it shows it with some surreal efforts and scenes that have kept audiences on their toes. Shani says that the film has been very touching with those who watch it, and he has seen several TikToks of people in tears coming out of the theater asking people to see the film.
“The way this story is crafted I think it breaks people open in a way they didn’t expect but then leaves them with a little bit of hope,” said Shani.
He believes that while the box office success has been great, the success metrics for India need to evolve. Rich Spirit’s internal figures suggest that more than 5 million people are aware of the film through social media, even if they haven’t seen the film in theaters yet, and the film’s word of mouth and reach is a good indicator of its digital prospects.
Earning $1 million at the box office for a film of this size (“If I Go Will They Miss Me” P&A spending was well below $1 million), in the post-COVID era is becoming similar to some studio films surpassing $100 million at the box office. We’re a long way from the days when Sundance films like “Little Miss Sunshine” or “Napoleon Dynamite” cleaned up at the box office, and most have been selling through streamers that don’t release these tiny indies in theaters. Those who find homes, who haven’t been in a lot of festivals lately, don’t even add up to those numbers.
“Union County,” one of this year’s US Drama competition titles and starring Will Poulter and Noah Centineo, was released by Oscilloscope this summer and only made $190K at the box office. Rob Lowe of “The Musical,” also a title contender, earned $224K from Blue Harbor Entertainment. “The Incomer” with Donald Gleeson and which premiered in NEXT passed $1 million, but that’s a more genre-driven movie than something like “If I Go.”
Shani’s “If I Go” beat another Sundance title, “Exhibiting Forgiveness”, which shared a similar audience and played in theaters through October for about five weeks in 2024. This film from Roadside Attractions opened in more than 700 theaters but only brought in about half, $506K, of what “If I Go” has already earned.
To make the most of the screens they had, Rich Spirit first opened on just one screen in Los Angeles and opened to $39K, a strong per-screen average. It then went with an additional $336K in its second weekend. The film was shot in LA and the city acts as something of a character in the story, so it was important to keep the film rooted here as well, having the opportunity to play at a few art houses but also the main AMC Century City, and the film saw a healthy split of income from both indie venues and the big chains.
But they also implemented internally the so-called Rich Spirit Obama Strategy. They targeted some black communities in Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, Raleigh, and more that are not protected enough by the box office and are still playing in some of these markets. And since Thompson-Hernandez already has an established audience as a celebrity journalist and photographer, they were able to tap into his existing audience. It’s a model that other countries in India have tried but with mixed results.
For Rich Spirit, this is just the third title from the upstart distributor, which also includes “BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions” and “The Apprentice,” a biopic of Donald Trump who saved Shani and sent him out under very different circumstances than “If I Go Will They Miss Me” was discussed. Shani will be crawling this upcoming Sundance again to find another similar title that he can win in the same way.
The key now is to find ways to continue serving that audience on PVOD, including developing a merchandising strategy, and supporting Thompson-Hernandez on his next step.
“For me, this is the first factor that, if we could do our job well enough, makes Walter do everything he wants to do next. And I think he’s already doing that,” said Shani.
