Under the white skies of February: "Red Silk" is in second place at the box office

The movie "Prophet. The Story of Alexander Pushkin" topped the Russian box office for the second weekend in a row. Musical biopic, according to preliminary data EAIS, earned for the period from February 20 to 23, 207.5 million rubles and is approaching 1 billion rubles of cumulative box office receipts. On the second line action-detective "Red Silk" with 196 million rubles, while the movie showed the highest earnings - 9.4 thousand per session. Close the top 3 family comedy "Manyunya: Ba's Birthday", which earned 93 million rubles.

"Red Silk" showed the best workload per session

For the second week in a row in the Russian box office is leading the musical biopic "Prophet. The Story of Alexander Pushkin." The large-scale production project collected for the past weekend 250 million, and the total at the box office of the film is already 818 million rubles. It is possible that in a week the picture of 30-year-old director Felix Umarov will cross the threshold of a billion rubles in total collections. At the same time, the excitement for the picture on the second week of rolling slightly subsided: over the weekend the picture was watched by 517 thousand viewers against 590 thousand weekend earlier. Competition "Prophet" is a sharp spy detective "Red Silk", which became the most successful novelty last week. Russian-Chinese project with Milos Bikovich, Gosha Kutsenko, Elena Podkaminskaya, Gleb Kalyuzhny and Zheng Hanyi started from the second line of the EAIS, earning over the weekend 196 million rubles.

The action of the movie unfolds in 1927. In the Trans-Siberian Express carries secret documents that will determine the future of the Soviet Union and China. That's why the papers become the target of spies and thugs, who travel in the same train under the guise of ordinary passengers. Identify the enemies have to a young Red Army soldier played by Kalyuzhny and a former Tsarist agent, played in the movie by Bikovich. According to the results of the weekend "Red Silk" showed the best average occupancy among all the novelties - 20 people per session. It is possible that satiated with domestic fairy tales Russian viewers are bored with dynamic blockbusters. The spy detective can boast the highest earnings per session - Br9.4 thousand. At the same time, the number of sessions of "Red Silk" was less than that of "Prophet" - 20.8 thousand against 27 thousand.

- "Red Silk" started well and will definitely continue to collect box office in the coming weeks - said the president of the network of cinemas "KARO" Olga Zinyakova. - But even a bright project with Milos Bikovich difficult to compete with the leader of the weekend "Prophet". The project with Yura Borisov too powerful PR and impressive sarafan, viewers want to make their own opinion about the movie.

Attendance during the holidays fell due to the shortened weekends

The family comedy "Manyunya: Ba's Birthday" dropped to third place from second place. The movie increased its box office by 93 million rubles and also shows a high average occupancy rate - 21 people per session. "Captain Hook" with Roman Kortsyn in the title role started at the box office from the fourth position, the full-length sequel to the series "Hook" 2021 earned over the weekend about 30 million rubles. A line below was the historical documentary and game project "Catherine the Great". The movie, which became a direct continuation of the films "Peter I. The Last Tsar and the First Emperor" and "Empresses", earned on the opening weekend only 38 million rubles. "Catherine the Great" also showed the worst average occupancy among the releases - ten people per session. At the same time, the movie "Peter I. The last Tsar and the first Emperor" in 2022 became the highest-grossing non-fiction film in the history of Russian cinema. "Catherine the Great" is unlikely to achieve such results.

- The box office of the novelty at the start is comparable to the results of a similar movie "Empress". Projects at the intersection of documentary and feature film was not bad for the viewer, the flagship "Peter I" collected almost 300 million rubles. "Catherine the Great" could earn more, but the weekend a large concentration of costume dramas - competitors for "Catherine the Great" became the lion's share of the top leaders, - said Olga Zinyakova.

The first five leaders left the Turkish melodrama "Leave it to the wind" with the star of the series "Knock on my door" Hande Erchel. For its third weekend, the movie earned 20.8 thousand rubles, but the "Leave it to the wind" is still a good occupancy rate - 15 people per session. The same picture can be seen in the military drama Sarik Andreasyan's "War and Music" (9.7 million for the weekend, the eighth line of EAIS) and the new horror "Astral. Grave Ritual" (8.1 million rubles, 10th line). Rounding out the top 12 of the rating of the highest-grossing films at the box office are the New Year's fairy-tale blockbusters "The Wizard of Emerald City. Yellow Brick Road" and "Finist. The first bogatyr" - over the weekend tapes increased their box office by 7.2 million and 5.7 million rubles, respectively.

In total, 1.2 million people came to see the novelties of film distribution on the weekend. Affected the attendance and the fact that this year's Defender of the Fatherland Day fell on a non-working day - Sunday. For comparison, last year during the February holidays cinemas were visited by 2.1 million viewers. But even the visitors then waited for a great variety of genres: the cinemas were romantic "Ice 3", action film "Commander", military drama "Air" and adaptation of "The Master and Margarita".

According to KARO president Olga Zinyakova, traditionally on holidays releases generate impressive box office, but in this particular case, the shortened holiday weekend had a strong impact on the total collections, showing a figure like a normal weekend. This story will repeat itself as early as next month. The March holiday weekend also falls on a weekend, so there are no potential box office blockbusters to be found in the release schedule.