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MOSCOW. (Russian Film Business Today) – The fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Casðian (BVSPR), the sequel to the 2005 hit The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe had a successful start in CIS cinemas. The film opened in the CIS a day earlier than in the U.S. The film, which stars Ben Barnes in the lead and like its predecessor is based on books by C. S. Lewis, grossed $6,730,177 from 735 screens in its first four days, easily taking the top spot in the CIS box office chart. Prince Caspian's average gross per print was $9157 – the best result among films that week.
In 2006, The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe earned a total of $8.09 million for its distributor Cascade.
What Happens in Vegas… (20th Century Fox CIS), the romantic comedy starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz which was last week's leader, fell to second place this week. It grossed $2,084,646 from 476 screens in its second weekend (47% less than in its first), for an 11-day total of $6,901,737. This is an outstanding result for a film of this genre. The comic book adaptation Iron Man (UPI), starring Robert Downey, Jr. moved to third place from second, pulling $531,710 off 549 screens (a 77% drop) in its third weekend. Its 18-day total is $9,167,969.
The British-Belgian crime comedy In Bruges (Paradise), directed by renowned British dramatist Martin McDonagh, debuted in fourth place. The film, which stars Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes racked up $381,189 from 112 screens. The third new film in the top ten was Charlie Bartlett (Lizard) starring Anton Yelchin and Robert Downey, Jr., which took up sixth place with a take of $112,461 from 59 screens.
Francis Ford Coppola’s romantic drama Youth Without Youth (Cinema Without Frontiers), which Coppola made after a 10-year hiatus and which is based on a classic novella by Romanian author Micrea Iliade, started in 14th place. The film, which stars Tim Roth and Alexandra Maria Lara and is a U.S.-French-German-Italian-Romanian co-production, grossed $16,147 from five screens.
And finally, The Banquet (Premium), the Chinese historic fantasy epic and loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” from director Xiaogang Feng, was in 41st place with $1,200 from two screens.
In addition to The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the other film that broke the $1 million barrier this week was the French comedy Les Deux Mondes, which grossed $1,015,794 in 25 days. With these latest additions, the “millionaire’s club” now numbers 74 films.
Total CIS box office from May 15–18 was $10,613,485, which is a 20.6% increase over the figure for last week. |
