Arriving in theaters the same weekend as Spider-Man 3 is working out well, so far, for Away from Her, according to execs at Capri Releasing and Mongrel Media.

‘It’s actually a good thing since most of the other studios are staying away from the May 4 weekend,’ says Mongrel director of theatrical releasing Tom Alexander, ‘so getting great screens wasn’t difficult.’

The drama — Sarah Polley’s directorial debut with Gordon Pinsent as a man struggling to come to terms with the Alzheimer’s disease afflicting his wife, played by Julie Christie — opens Friday on six screens in Toronto, including the high-profile Varsity and some outlying megaplexes, and three in Vancouver. South of the border, it arrives on two each in New York and Los Angeles through Lionsgate Films.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man 3 will flood the market, arriving on, reportedly, a record 4,200 screens across North America, including more than 500 in Canada on Cineplex screens alone, via Sony and Columbia. The three distributors behind Away from Her hope the counter-programming will pay off.

‘The movies couldn’t be more different, and it’s an option for mature, art-house audiences that are not interested in Spider-Man,’ a spokesperson from Lionsgate tells Playback Daily.

Capri and Mongrel, which struck a co-distribution agreement in March, will expand the critics’ darling to other key markets, including Victoria, Edmonton, Montreal, Halifax and St. John’s, on May 11, coinciding with Mother’s Day.

Capri laid much of the marketing and promotion groundwork for Away from Her leading up to its festival run in 2006, but president Gabriella Martinelli says bringing Mongrel on board has benefited the film.

‘They’ve really added some good energy and great ideas. For example, the flyer insert in newspapers [including the Globe and Mail] was something that [Mongrel president] Hussain Amarshi’s team brought forward, which I thought was a great idea,’ says Martinelli, adding that ‘everyone’s on the same page.’

Alexander is confident about Away from Her‘s chances for longevity in theaters during the busy summer. ‘I think it will be very successful,’ he says.

‘What I saw with how Mongrel handled Water… it lasted in theaters a long time, because it was a movie that people talked about. We feel that this is going to accomplish the same thing,’ Martinelli adds.

The only other wide release this week is the Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Lucky You, from Warner Bros. The biopic The Flying Scotsman, about cyclist Graeme Obree, arrives in limited release from MGM Pictures.

Meanwhile, the David Lynch mystery Inland Empire opens in cities including Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal through Toronto’s Ultra 8 Pictures. It arrives alongside the Vancouver-shot terrorist thriller Civic Duty, bowing on 11 screens via Christal Films in Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto.

Coming up, Dutch director Rolf de Heer’s aboriginal drama Ten Canoes, a Cannes special jury prize winner, is set for a May 25 release in Canada via Kinosmith Films.