‘Cyrus’ and ‘The Kids Are All Right’ face weekend tests

Fox Searchlight found the limit for how many people want to see the offbeat romantic comedy “Cyrus” this weekend, while Focus Features found there’s still a bigger potential audience for indie drama “The Kids Are All Right.”

“Cyrus,” which stars John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill more than doubled its theater count from 200 to 446 but saw its ticket sales decline from $1.3 million to a studio estimated $1.1 million.

While “Cyrus” continues to play well in cities, it didn’t find much of an audience in the new suburban theaters where it opened this weekend, said Fox Searchlight executive vice president of distribution Sheila DeLoach.

With its limit in terms of national expansion reached, “Cyrus” likely will continue to decline and end up with a little more than the $5.1 million it has grossed.

“The Kids Are All Right,” meanwhile, had a very strong expansion on its second weekend from seven to 38 theaters, all in major cities. It sold just more than $1-million worth of tickets, or $27,000 per theater.

Focus distribution president Jack Foley said he’s now confident that the Sundance Film Festival favorite starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo will end up with more than $10 million. The indie division of Universal Pictures is expanding “Kids” aggressively to build on its box office momentum, taking it to about 175 theaters on Friday and more than 500 on July 30.

—Ben Fritz