Howard’s ‘Eight Days’ Streak

Poster for Ron Howard's "The Beatles: Eight Days a  Week -- The Touring Years"

Poster for Ron Howard’s “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years”

Ron Howard’s “The Beatles: Eight Days A Week — The Touring Years” is the latest rockumentary to find a warm reception in movie theaters, earning a vibrant $5,196,432 worldwide in its first eight days of release.

In the U.S., the film opened Sept. 16, playing so strongly on its 85 screens — with a per-screen average of $7,322 during its first few days — that many theaters opted to continue playing it, even though it was initially planned for a one-week theatrical rollout.

The feat was all the more remarkable in that the film simultaneously debuted on Hulu, which produced through its new Hulu Documentary division. The film was released theatrically in the U.S. by Abramorama on Sept. 16, the day after it’s world premiere in London.

The 100-minute film charts the Fab Four’s road warrior years — the 1962-1966 period when non-stop touring took them from Liverpool’s Cavern Club to San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. Howard, an avowed Beatles devotee, made the film in cooperation with Apple Music, but didn’t stop at the archives; he shook the trees to obtain never-before-seen footage.

“The story is so sprawling.” Howard told Fast Company. “I think the biggest frustration was that there was so much great material. How do you focus it and deliver it in a way that really respects people’s time, but really inform—in a tight, fun, fluid way—a clear sense of what that journey was like and what it meant to these four remarkable individuals?”

The DVD hits stores Nov. 18. In addition to the plain-vanilla offering, an extras-packed two-disc collectors edition featuring a 64-page booklet will also be available.

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