French films at the international box office: January 2017

22 FEBRUARY 2017

In January, a dramatic comedy took over German screens, a drama crossed a symbolic threshold in the United States, and a comedy created a surprise in Australia.

During the month of January, 1 majority French production garnered more than 1 million admissions abroad.

#	Title	Admissions	Box Office Revenues (€)	No. of Prints	No. of Countries	Total Admissions
1	Two is a Family	1,341,042	10,192,755	1,135	8	1,591,411
2	Elle	141,380	1,108,879	283	11	710,326
3	Full Speed	115,921	559,547	378	4	159,968
4	Fanny's Journey	84,758	409,014	367	2	90,193
5	Rosalie Blum	78,951	748,052	27	1	138,096
6	Family Heist	76,646	358,495	590	2	76,646
7	Irreplaceable	68,380	397,472	76	7	601,557
8	Frantz	65,673	386,023	107	4	434,127
9	Back to Mom's	62,711	410,752	107	2	464,452
10	The Red Turtle	37,323	262,969	47	3	219,136
11	Dalida	34,451	312,787	47	2	34,451
12	Agnus Dei / The Innocents	27,582	204,967	114	6	485,618
13	A Bag of Marbles	27,365	224,793	57	2	27,365
14	Shut In	26,400	148,758	125	10	1,861,151
15	Things to Come	25355	154,035	40	5	448,264
16	He Even Has Your Eyes	21,895	199,071	39	3	21,895
17	From the Land of the Moon	21,094	98,756	116	2	64,659
18	Penny Pincher!	19,279	87,315	72	2	390,292
19	Roommates Wanted	19,063	144,785	115	3	85,288
20	Last Call for Nowhere	14,731	61,600	23	1	64,155

Two is a Family got off to a tremendous start in 2017 in German theaters. In Germany, the film, released on 215 prints, attracted nearly 243,000 spectators in its opening week (797,000 admissions in total). Armed with this result, the comedy reached 6th position at the local box office, with the best average per print among the rankings, outpacing the Hollywood blockbuster Passengers, which was released at the same time on more than 530 prints (487,000 admissions). It met with the same success in Austria, where Two is a Family achieved the third best result of the week it released, with 46,000 admissions recorded for 49 screens (134,000 total admissions). Lastly, in German-speaking Switzerland, Hugo Gélin's film rose to the top of the weekly rankings with nearly 20,000 spectators for 29 screens in its opening week (62,000 admissions in total).
While still in Europe, Two is a Family also stood out in Russian theaters during January. Released on 271 copies, the title accumulated nearly 87,000 admissions during its opening week and rose to ninth place at the weekly box office (347,000 total admissions). Also noteworthy: the film's fine performance in Lebanon, where Two is a Family crossed the symbolic threshold of 10,000 spectators after a 6-week run in two theaters. A threshold that only The Little Prince (25,000 admissions) and The Bélier Family (10,000 admissions), in French, have crossed in the past two years. To date, Two is a Family has clocked up more than 1.8 million admissions in 9 foreign territories.

After 9 weeks on screen in an average of thirty theaters, Elle passed the million dollar mark at the American box office ($1.8 million - around 234,000 admissions)! Paul Verhoeven's film hence establishes itself as the best result for a French-language film in this territory for the past 2 years, overtaking The Salt of the Earth ($1.2 million - around 159,000 admissions), The Past ($0.9 million - 148,000 admissions), and Agnus Dei / The Innocents ($0.9 million -126,000 admissions). Released in twenty foreign territories to date, Elle has accumulated nearly 540,000 admissions thus far, of which 143,000 in Spain and 105,000 in the The Netherlands. The film is due for release in Singapore, Thailand, Germany, and Austria In February, and in the United Kingdom and Italy in March.

A fine surprise in Australian theaters during the beginning of the year! After three weeks of successful theatrical preview screenings (AUD 260,000 garnered), Rosalie Blum released on 23 screens at the end of December. With a total of nearly AUD 600,000 tallied at the end of its opening week (being around 45,000 spectators), Julien Rappeneau's film became the second most successful French-language title of 2016, behind La Famille Bélier, released exactly one year prior by the same distributor (168,000 admissions). The good word-of-mouth noted since the Alliance Française French Film Festival last March allowed the film to rapidly garner more than a million Australian dollars at the box office (AUD 1.7 million / 128,000 total admissions), a reassuring signal for French films in this territory after 2016, when admissions dropped by more than 60% in comparision with 2015.