If strong word of mouth can get out, this could be a film to watch. Regardless, as someone mentioned below, this movie already probably made its money back. That's no easy feat, especially since you don't have the "much-needed" stars to begin with. BOM lists the movie approaching $1.6m Box Office now.

Looks like they're being cautious and doing a platform release roll out. Super indie. But there's no shame in that, especially since it's more or less of a hit already financially. Guessing this isn't some $20m "indie" (with another $20m for P&A) so they have to stay afloat however they can.

But saying that only stars open movies nowadays is pretty shortsighted. Not to mention that this could potentially be a great launching vehicle for all involved (director, no-name leads, etc).

The only thing I see missing that they need are more industry reviews/coverage. Let's see if opening in LA in a week does that for them.

But out in the rest of the country, they are going to have to do it the old fashioned way: media buy. And it is very, very expensive to cut through all the noise and gain traction for a small picture without any stars.

Best case scenario for the story: the filmmaker finds a studio that views the project as the domestic equivalent of a great foreign film no one has heard of and purchases the rights so that he can remake it with someone like Andrew Garfield/Robert Pattinson/Logan Lerman/Josh Hutcherson.