Clearly riding solid numbers following its media blitz campaigning against the MPAA’s R rating, Bully opened in five locations, with a hefty $23,000 average, not bad for a small documentary released unrated. Under normal circumstances, going unrated might spell box office trauma, but distributor The Weinstein Company and director Lee Hirsch capitalized on their spat with the MPAA and rode it to many news shows and sympathetic celebrity tweets.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/04/specialty-box-office-bully-scores-hefty-punch-the-island-president-floats/