Before his film “If I Go Will They Miss Me” found a distributor, director Walter Thompson-Hernandez was already developing title treatments and ideas for marketing materials for how his film should be positioned. He had a clear sense of his audience and a foundation of followers in place, and it was important he worked with the right team to get the movie out there.
Now, months removed from its premiere in the NEXT section at Sundance 2026, “If I Go Will They Miss Me” has found a greater audience than perhaps the director or its distributor, Rich Spirit, ever imagined. The film has surpassed $1 million at the domestic box office over a span of five weeks in theaters, only going as wide as 251 screens. It opens digitally for PVOD rental on October 23, but the film has earned enough demand and word of mouth that it will remain in some independent theaters in limited release for longer.
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James Shani, founder of Rich Spirit, said the film upon seeing it at Sundance was “undeniable” and had a clear audience with an African American-forward crowd that is often underserved by the box office. But it was existing in an environment where other companies weren’t taking the bet on these types of movies.
“I really believed that this story and this this movie was specific and nuanced, and what Walter and the team have made is something that takes stories and takes circumstances that aren’t 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 trying to reconnect with his estranged father following a prison stint. So it’s a film about fatherhood and community, but it illustrates it with a few surreal turns and visions that have kept audiences attentive. Shani says that the film has really struck a chord with those who watch it, and he’s seen numerous TikToks of people in tears coming out of the theater begging people to see the film.
“The way that this story is crafted I think breaks people open in a way that they didn’t necessarily expect but then leaves them with some hope,” Shani said.
He believes that while the box office success has been great, the metrics of success for indies have to evolve. Rich Spirit’s internal figures suggest that over 5 million people have awareness of the film via social media, even if they’ve yet to see the film in theaters, and the film’s word of mouth and reach is a good sign for its prospects on digital.
Earning $1 million at the box office for a movie of this size (“If I Go Will They Miss Me” had a P&A spend well below $1 million), is in a post-COVID era becoming akin to some studio films surpassing $100 million at the box office. We’re far removed from the days when Sundance movies like “Little Miss Sunshine” or “Napoleon Dynamite” were cleaning up at the box office, and the big sales for the most part have been via streamers that aren’t releasing these tiny indies in theaters. Those that do find homes, which hasn’t been many in recent festivals, aren’t even putting up these numbers.
“Union County,” one of the U.S. Dramatic competition titles this year and starred Will Poulter and Noah Centineo, was released by Oscilloscope this summer and made only $190K at the box office. Rob Lowe fim “The Musical,” also a competition title, did $224K from Blue Harbor Entertainment. “The Incomer” with Domhnall Gleeson and which also premiered in NEXT, did surpass $1 million, but that’s a more genre-driven film than something like “If I Go.”
Shani comped “If I Go” to another Sundance title, “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” which shared a similar audience and also played in theaters throughout October for roughly five weeks in 2024. That film from Roadside Attractions opened on over 700 theaters but only took in about half, $506K, of what “If I Go” has already earned.
In order to make the most of the screens they had, Rich Spirit first opened on just a single screen in Los Angeles and opened to $39K, a strong per-screen-average. It then ballooned 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, getting the chance to play at a few art houses but also the major AMC Century City, and the film saw a healthy split of revenue from both indie venues and the big chains.
But they also executed on what Rich Spirit internally called the Obama Strategy. They targeted some Black communities in Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, Raleigh, and more that have been underserved by the box office and are still playing in some of those markets. And because Thompson-Hernandez already has an established audience as a noted journalist and photographer, they’ve been able to lean into his audience that was already there. It’s a model that other indies have tried but with some mixed results.
For Rich Spirit, this is just the upstart distributor’s third title, which also includes “BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions” and “The Apprentice,” the Donald Trump biopic which Shani salvaged and released under far different circumstances than how “If I Go Will They Miss Me” has been approached. Shani will be crawling this upcoming Sundance again to find another similar title it can champion in the same way.
The key now is to find ways to continue to serve that audience on PVOD, including developing a merchandising strategy, and supporting Thompson-Hernandez on his next step.
“To me, this is a a first feature that, if we could do our job well enough, sets Walter off to do whatever he wants to do next. And I think he’s already doing that,” Shani said.