Chloe Okuno’s feature directorial debut is making a splash at the box office. “Watcher” scored “the biggest opening weekend grosses ever for IFC Films and its IFC Midnight/Shudder label on 764 U.S. screens — also one of the distributor’s widest ever releases,” per Deadline. The thriller, led by “It Follows” breakout Maika Monroe, “reported an estimated weekend gross of $815,000 and a PSA of $1,067.”
“Watcher” made its world premiere at Sundance in January. Written by Okuno and Zack Ford, the pic tells the story of Julia (Monroe), an American actress who, in the midst of reevaluating her career, moves to Bucharest with her half-Romanian boyfriend, who has landed a promotion at the marketing company he works for. Struggling to adapt to her new surroundings and the language barrier, a lonely Julia becomes increasingly convinced that she’s being stalked by a neighbor just as a serial killer begins dominating the news.
“’Watcher’ is one of the best feature debuts we have ever screened out of Sundance and with it, Chloe Okuno has proven without a doubt that she is a leading new voice in horror,” said IFC Films president Arianna Bocco. “We are thrilled to have been her partner on the release of ‘Watcher’ and remain committed to finding the best new voices working in film today.”
“I’ve always admired true psychological thrillers that are dedicated to getting us as much as possible into the head of our protagonist – making us feel everything that they are feeling. I was drawn to the simplicity of it as well – the story of a woman who is not believed,” Okuno told us. “It can be a very devastating experience, and one that many people have probably encountered at one time or another. Women in particular frequently are confronted with this sort of patronizing stance from the people around them.” She explained, “We learn to modify our emotions so that we cannot be written off as overly emotional, even if those emotions are justified. It becomes a very exhausting cycle. This is a movie that explores that within a more heightened genre scenario, but the core frustrations are ones that I’ve experienced personally and was interested in exploring.”
We featured “Watcher” as a Pick of the Day.
Okuno is set to team up with Anna Kendrick for “Rodney & Sheryl,” a Netflix pic based on the true story of a serial killer who appeared on “The Dating Game” — and the woman he won a date with.
