UniFrance Films box office report: Love continues its ascent.
Love has hit the mark in Spain (Golem), with 83,000 admissions registered after one complete week on the screens. With its release bolstered in the United States (Sony) by an increase from 3 to 15 prints, the film has taken an additional $390,000 in its 5th week, for a total of $770,000 since its launch. The USA now ranks as the 5th international market in which Love has attracted over 100,000 spectators, behind the UK (Artificial Eye, 108,000 admissions in 9 weeks), the Netherlands (Cinéart, 152,000 admissions in 9 weeks), Italy (Teodora, 184,000 admissions in 12 weeks), and Germany (X-Verleih, 257,000 admissions in 18 weeks). Norwegian audiences (Arthaus) have also shown their support for the film, with 32,000 admissions registered in 4 weeks. Love now ranks as the 17th French-language production since the early 2000s to have topped 30,000 admissions in this market.
Love currently posts a total of over 1.3 million admissions in international theaters.
Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia has registered a somewhat lackluster debut in Italy (Lucky Red), with around 120,000 admissions to date from an ambitious 428-print release. Results for the three previous episodes of the Asterix series in Italy appear to suggest that the franchise may be running out of steam. The first installment, Asterix and Obelix versus Cesar (Cecchi Gori) pulled in 1.5 million spectators in 1999, while Asterix and Obelix, Mission Cleopatra (Buena Vista) registered 770,000 admissions three years later, and Asterix at the Olympic Games tallied 590,000 spectators in 2008. It seems unlikely that the latest episode will reverse the trend, based on these initial results. After its release in Germany (Concorde, 330,000 admissions) and Spain (Tripictures, 165,000 admissions), Italian audiences also appear to be giving Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia the cold shoulder. Among the markets that have previously given the series an enthusiastic reception, only Poland (Kino Swiat) has posted results on par with the previous episode, with just under 500,000 admissions registered.
Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia tallies 3.3 million admissions to date in theaters outside France.
Renoir jumped to the 5th spot at the box office in French-speaking Switzerland (Pathé Films) in its opening week, registering 3,300 admissions from 6 prints. These are encouraging initial results that should spur its distributors to increase the number of prints released, as early as next week. Its performance in Belgium (Cinéart) is less impressive, with 8,000 admissions registered from 14 prints after 2 weeks. We may recall that the director Gilles Bourdos's previous film, the thriller Afterwards did not manage to strike a chord with French-language audiences in 2009, with 10,000 admissions registered in Belgium (Victory) and 1,100 admissions in French-speaking Switzerland (Frenetic). The film's late release in Russia (Luxor) in early 2011 nonetheless attracted 83,000 spectators, although this figure accounts for the largest share of the 106,000 admissions achieved by Afterwards abroad.
