“Stonewall” stumbles at box office opening weekend

A wave of negative pre-release publicity and some scathing reviews combined to torpedo the opening weekend of Stonewall at the box office.

The film directed by Roland Emmerich opened on 129 screens and earned a paltry $817 per screen. In all, the film earned just $150,000 and opened in 29th place.

In contrast, the weekend’s number one film, Hotel Transylvania 2, averaged $12,653 per screen for an opening three-day haul of $47,500.

Stonewall is a controversial drama about a fictional young man caught up during the 1969 Stonewall riots. Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine) is forced to leave behind friends and loved ones when he is kicked out of his parent’s home and flees to New York. Alone in Greenwich Village, homeless and destitute, he befriends Ray (Jonny Beauchamp) and a group of street kids who soon introduce him to the local watering hole The Stonewall Inn.

From the premiere of the film’s first trailer last month, there was criticism that the film seemed too Danny-centric and focused on a fictional white male at the expense of other more diverse characters.