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The anticiðation was finally over for filmgoers in the CIS, as in the rest of the world, for the theatrical release of the third installment of the Mummy series. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (UPI), which continues the adventures of the intrepid archaeologist Rick O’Connell, where he has to battle reanimated mummies in various corners of the globe opened on 854 screens in the CIS. The box office figure for this Rob Cohen film, also starring Jet Li and Maria Bello, exceeded all expectations – $13,358,772 in its first four days, topping the box office chart and a per-screen average of $15,643. Obviously, this was the best result of any film that week. The third Mummy’s opening weekend was the best among foreign films in 2008 and the third-largest in the entire history of film distribution in Russia. The film that earned the most money in four days was The Very Best Film (Caroprokat; $16,484,460) in 2008 and in second place was Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (BVSPR; $13,956,706) in 2007. Let us recall that the first Mummy, released in 1999 and directed by Stephen Sommers, brought its distributor East-West a total of $600,000. Two years later, the sequel The Mummy Returns, also directed by Sommers put $3.05 million in East-West’s piggybank. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor became the only blockbuster that debuted in the weekend under review to break $1 million. Including this film, the “millionaire’s club” membership is now up to 93 films. There were two more new films this week, but their first weekend was not nearly so extraordinary. In fifth place was the American romantic comedy My Sassy Girl (Pyramida), starring Jesse Bradford and Elisha Cuthbert. This remake of a 2001 Korean film grossed $254,904 from 140 screens. The Spanish comedy Moon in a Bottle (Russky Reportazh), starring Eduard Soto, had to make do with 16th place, grossing $13,577 from two screens. Last week’s leader, Chris Carter’s sci-fi thriller X-Files: I Want to Believe (20th Century Fox CIS) slipped into second place in its second weekend, grossing $690,098 (72% less than its opening weekend) from 553 screens, for an 11-day total of $4,132,220. Moving from second to third was the Will Smith vehicle Hancock (BVSPR), which grossed $512 675 (a 71% drop) from 273 screens in its fourth weekend, for a total of $25,380,705 in 25 days. Guillermo de Toro’s Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (UPI) starring Ron Perlman moved from third to fourth. Its 310 screens yielded $287,790 for the week. In 18 days of release, the film grossed a total of $8,196,771. Thanks to the third Mummy’s impressive start, total CIS box office from July 31 to August 3 more than doubled (up 101.6%) compared with last week’s figure, reaching $15,981,861. |
