Word of mouth: people go to the "Red Silk" out of love for the Motherland

The National Box Office this week repeated the results of last weekend. The top four are the same: the fairy tale "The Frog Princess" topped the top with 119 million rubles. "The Prophet" is in the second position — 109 million. And the most anticipated film of the year, "Red Silk", with 57 million, retains high attendance at its sessions and again did not miss the biopic "Rodnina" above the fourth line. The sports drama collected only 51 million. The main failure among the new products is the cartoon "Zveropoisk", low turnout at its sessions, fees amounted to 46 million rubles. Izvestia assessed the preliminary results of the cinema collections over the weekend.

Fairy tales rule

As soon as a family movie appears at the box office, any action films, dramas and thrillers have to actively fight for the audience. And if the advertising budget is small, it is difficult to compete with such a genre. Last week's leader is Alexander Amirov's "Frog Princess". Starting on March 6, the film scored 201 million at the box office and topped the box office. The Frog did not give up its leading position. Despite the fact that the box office grossed only 119 million in the second weekend, fantasy starring Alexander Metelkin and Valentina Lyapina took the first place in the analysis from the EAIS (Unified Federal Automatic Information System for information about movie screenings in cinemas. – Ed.). What explains this?

"The Frog Princess is moving at a good pace, the audience volume has not even dropped by half compared to the first weekend," Olga Zinyakova, president of the KARO cinema chain, told Izvestia. — By all accounts, this is the undisputed leader of the weekend, which will continue to collect cash. We expect a surge of interest in the project during the holidays.

Whether Olga Zinyakova's expectations will be fulfilled, we will see in a week. But another potential rental leader, the animated novelty "Zveropoisk" from directors Cinzia Angelini and David Feiss, failed at the box office. The film grossed only 46 million. But, according to the head of the KARO cinema chain, the release worked within expectations. And in the face of competition with The Frog Princess, the film adaptation of the Berkeley Breazed children's book even jumped over its head. The performance of similar animated films of the previous year — "Fluffy Voyage" and "Super Wings" - was comparable with its results. The upcoming holidays will fix things, the expert believes. The animated adventure "Zveropoisk" tells the story of Detective Pig. He travels all over the world in his super cool car and searches for missing animals. But the new task challenges even such a master of his craft — he has to catch a cute and naive elephant Pickle.

Pushkin and the "Red Silk" in the top

For the fifth week, the "Prophet. The Story of Alexander Pushkin" with Yura Borisov as a classic. According to the EAIS, Felix Umarov's film earned 109.2 million rubles last weekend and took the second place. And the total fees amounted to 1.36 billion.

Another leader with positive dynamics is the detective action film "Red Silk" produced by NMG Film Distribution, following "The Prophet". For the fourth week, Andrei Volgin's blockbuster with Milos Bikovic, Gosha Kutsenko, Elena Podkaminskaya, and Hanyi Zheng has been at the top. The total fees amounted to 576 million, including 57 million for the last weekend. Can the "Red Silk" reach a billion?

"Red Silk has potential, but it would be higher if the audience wasn't being eaten up by other holdovers aimed at the 16+ audience, such as The Prophet, Ape, Rodnina, In the Lost Lands, and North Pole," Olga Zinyakova is sure.

Izvestia was asked to analyze the rolling fate of the Red Silk by Maria Shcherbal, CEO of the Wanta Group consulting company. In her opinion, before the premiere, according to the expectations index, the film "NMG Film Distribution" showed average values: 14 points in two weeks and 25 a week before the premiere, which is good, but less than that of the leader, "The Prophet" (34 and 54 points, respectively).

— In this sense, the film had a difficult situation. Yura Borisov's Oscar nomination only fueled the already overblown media interest in The Prophet, and it was difficult for any other film to compete with it, — said Maria Shcherbal. — Nevertheless, we see that after the release of the film, it is consistently at the top of the rating of already released films that want to watch, its performance has become comparable to "The Prophet": for example, three weeks after the premiere, the index was 26 points (for the film about Pushkin — 20 points).

The analyst also concluded that Red Silk has a good sundress. This is evidenced by the fact that more and more people come on the recommendation of friends: in the second week of rental, there were 19% of such people, and now 27%. The main values that people perceived in Andrei Volgin's film are "courage, overcoming fear" (25%), "service to the Motherland" (21%), and "patriotism" (19%).

Rodnina, pull yourself up

Those who are unlucky with training camps are the sports drama "Rodnina" directed by Konstantin Statsky. The biopic about the fate of three-time Olympic champion, six-time USSR champion, 11-time European champion and 10-time world champion Irina Rodnina cannot rise above the fourth position for the second week. The fees of the last weekend amounted to only 51 million, and in total — 148 million.

— The marketing trail of other releases simply blocked Rodnina, — says Olga Zinyakova. — There is an audience's interest in large-scale sports dramas, but so far the film has caught only fans of the topic and genre, and it has not been possible to captivate a wider audience.

The Hollywood thriller with Oscar-winning Cillian Murphy "The Little Things of Life" did not work either. The film ranks seventh in the EAIS rating. The film is based on a true story described in the media and UN materials, which became the basis for the book by Claire Keegan. In a small town in Ireland, a convent has a women's shelter called the Magdalene Laundries. Girls who had to pay for their adultery with hard work get there. Women were tortured under the pretext of re-education, and they were often pregnant.

This film was produced by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and the lead actor. It cannot be said that the thriller did not interest the audience, since the average number of viewers per session is 17 people. And this is comparable to the leaders. The number of sessions alone is no match for a horror movie. "The Prophet" has 9,654 in the last weekend, and the tape "The Little Things of Life" has 1,826. It's still difficult to say whether the film with Cillian Murphy will stay in the top. From March 20, the family melodrama "Palm 2" about a dog, the comedy "Zhdun", the science fiction "The Last Demon Hunter" and the melodrama "Showgirls" with Pamela Anderson will compete for the audience.