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MSCOW (Russian Film Business Today) – On the weekend of March 27–30 one Russian film has replaced another in the top spot in the CIS box office chart. The comedy Radio Day (Central Partnership), created through the efforts of the Quartet I comedy troupe, was on top last week, but fell to second place this week, grossing $1,378,713 from 407 screens in its second weekend (46% less than in its first), for a total of $4,808,409 in 11 days. It was knocked from first place by Roman Prygunov’s $3 million sci-fi thriller Indigo (Caro Prokat) starring Ivan Yankovsky, Artyom Tkachenko and Mikhail Yefremov, which grossed $2,607,447 from 361 screens in its first five days (the film was released on Wednesday). Starting in third place, Roger Donaldson’s caper film The Bank Job, with Jason Statham and Saffron Burrows, immediately set two records for its distributor Top Film – number of screens (206) and gross for first four days ($1,193,038). Holding in fourth place was the family fantasy The Spiderwick Chronicles (UPI), starring Freddie Highmore, which put $1,152,122 into its piggybank from 434 screens in its second weekend (down 30%), for a total of $3,544,846 in 11 days. Rounding out the top five was the new parody comedy Superhero Movie (West) with Drake Bell and Leslie Nielsen, which took $1,108,727 from 298 screens. The Russian release of this film was its world premiere. Indigo, The Bank Job and Superhero Movie all broke the $1 million barrier, as did the French-German-Luxembourgeois animated co-production Dragon Hunters (Luxor), which did so in its second week of release. Currently, there are 54 films that made more than $1 million this year. The U. S.-U.K.-South African post-apocalyptic thriller Doomsday (Pyramida), starring Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell and directed by Neil Marshall, was shy of a million with $859 302 from 250 screens. It was seventh in the box office chart. Three new films fell neatly into the 16th, 17th and 18th spots on the list. Topping this group was To Each His Own Cinema (CP Classic), which consists of shorts by 33 world-renowned directors, including Theo Angelopoulos, Joel and Ethan Coen, Lars von Trier, Takeshi Kitano, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu, Roman Polanski, Aki Kaurasmaki, Andrei Konchalovsky, Wim Wenders, Wong Kar Wai, Claude Lelouch and many others. The film took $42,177 off eight screens. The other two were Juame Balaguero and Paco Plaza’s [REC] (Lizard), which was released only outside of Moscow (34 screens, $41,865) and Kenneth Branagh’s thriller Sleuth (Paradise) with Michael Caine and Jude Law, a remake of the classic 1972 film adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s play, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Laurence Olivier and the very same Michael Caine. The new Sleuth has turned out to be very resourceful indeed – it took $37,192 from only three screens, i.e. $12,397 per screen – the best take of any film that week. By comparison, Indigo made only $7,223 per screen. Finally, Control (Cinema Without Frontiers), Anton Corbijn’s black-and-white biopic of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, was in 24th place. The film stars Sam Riley as Curtis and Samantha Morton as his wife Deborah. This Australian-U.S.-U.K.-Japanese co-production earned $17,232 from three screens. Total CIS box office for the last weekend in March (March 27-30) was $12,015,206, which was 3.1% more than the previous weekend. |
