It seems moviegoers are eager to see the Great War as they’ve never seen it before.
Peter Jackson’s WWI documentary has set a brand new record. They Shall Never Grow Old features never-before-seen 100-year-old footage as well as previously unheard recordings to experience the war as the soldiers did.
Deadline now reports that the documentary from Warner Bros. and three-times Oscar-winning filmmaker has set a new record grossing an estimated $3.1 million on Thursday at 1,122 theaters in North America. This means that the film has now taken in $5.4 million in just two days of showings.
Jackson used footage from Imperial War Museum archives and voice recordings of actual British Soldiers from the BBC archives to create the documentary. He used state-of-the-art technology to colorize and sharpen the images.
“I wanted to reach through the fog of time and pull these men into the modern world, so they can regain their humanity once more – rather than be seen only as Charlie Chaplin-type figures in the vintage archive film,” said Jackson.
According to Deadline Warner Bros. will launch a theatrical release in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, on January 11 and plans to expand to 25 markets on February 1.
