Lionsgate Films is taking its chances with zombies, albeit modestly, opening Andrew Currie’s comedy Fido on one screen each in New York and Los Angeles Friday, following a mild debut in Canada earlier this year.

The film, starring Billy Connolly and Carrie-Ann Moss, opened in Canada on 70 screens on March 15 with high expectations, good reviews, and a $2-million P&A push from TVA Films. It took in $163,000 in its first week in theaters, for a per-screen average of around $2,300.

‘They opened it broadly in Canada without much success…so we’re taking it slowly over here,’ a Lionsgate spokesperson tells Playback Daily. Fido will open exclusively at the Angelika in Manhattan and the Nuart Theatre in west L.A.

The spokesperson says the distrib is ‘cautiously optimistic,’ adding that it has plans to expand Fido to cities including Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.

Meanwhile, back on this side of the border, Mongrel Media is releasing foreign titles including the Israeli drama Sweet Mud, a grand jury prize winner at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and the Japanese animation Paprika, on one and two screens, respectively. Sweet Mud will play at Toronto’s Sheppard Grande theater, while Paprika opens at the downtown Scotiabank theater in Toronto and the Tinseltown in Vancouver.

‘[Paprika] is a progressive animated feature, so we think the Scotiabank is a perfect screen for it because it has a bit of a younger audience,’ says Mongrel director of theatrical releasing Tom Alexander.

Meanwhile, Mongrel and Capri Releasing are reducing the number of screens for Sarah Polley’s Away from Her, from 38 to 33. The drama, which is ‘holding steady,’ according to Alexander, has a total domestic box office of just slightly over $1 million.

Other foreign films hitting the big screen Friday include the U.K. drama Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman, opening in Toronto and Vancouver via Odeon Films, and the Italian dramedy Il Caimano, distributed by Christal Films.

Among Hollywood fare opening wide is the Vancouver-shot Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer — the latest in a series of summer sequels — from Twentieth Century Fox, and the family adventure Nancy Drew from Warner Bros.

___________________________

This story has been corrected. It previously referred to the Nuart Theatre in L.A. as the ‘Newark.’