Octopussy repeated: "Kraken" defeated everyone again

The top 10 of the Russian box office includes two paintings with Alexander Petrov at once. "Kraken" is in first place, according to the EAIS, it collected 175 million rubles over the past weekend, and its total box office exceeded 400 million rubles. But Petrov's more modest film was not lost either, the military retro drama "The Postman" entered the top ten, and before that it was successfully shown to the public at the Moscow International Film Festival. Izvestia summarizes the results of the Russian box office over the past weekend.

The audience started going to the cinema less

The sad truth is that the overall attendance at Russian cinemas has declined — and it looks like it will continue to decline in the coming months, until the fall and big releases. For the second weekend in a row, the number of viewers in Russia is 1.2 million, the lowest since last October.

"Perhaps the decline in cinema attendance is due to the fact that there is currently no new interesting content for young people," Maria Shcherbal, CEO of the Wanta Group, suggested in an interview with Izvestia. — The movie "Kraken", for example, attracts a more adult audience, and teenagers begin to worry about the end of the school year, so this attendance sags. So, according to our data, this week the category of teenagers aged 12-17 showed a decline from 33% to 27%.

According to Olga Zinyakova, president of the KARO cinema chain, this is quite an expected pre-holiday lull.

— In the absence of high-profile new rental products, the cash register is currently generated only by holders. Plus, many moviegoers have already left for the May holidays," she noted.

Against the general background, Kraken really works not only well, but exceeds any expectations. In a normal situation, a new product, even a top-end one, shows a two- to three-fold drop in fees by the second weekend. Kraken, on the contrary, earned more than in the first weekend. At the start it was 169 million, now it is 178 million. Moreover, the cinemas did not predict this, because they gave the film a quarter less sessions than last weekend.

It turned out to be an octopus: how "Kraken" worked out with Petrov on the first weekend

Results of the national box office over the weekend

This means that the marketing of the film did not work effectively enough and did not bring the audience to the cinema, but those who did come launched sarafan. And that's when people were drawn to this particular picture, believing their friends and influencers. There were an average of 13 people at the Kraken sessions on the first weekend, and 17 on the second. This is a good example of how audience cinema can clear its way even when advertising has not worked sufficiently.

In second place is "Father 2. Grandfather", who smoothly and majestically left the position of leader with the release of "Kraken", but does not write himself off. The painting has a good working time for the session, even slightly better than last weekend. This time she earned 94 million rubles, and the painting already has more than 1.35 billion. This is the fourth highest—grossing release of the year, and this week it could surpass "The Prophet" and become the third -after "The Wizard of Oz" and "Finist."

"Deniskin's stories" collect worse than "Manyuni"

The third place went to the most successful novel of the weekend, the film adaptation of Victor Dragunsky's short stories "Deniskin Stories". It is clear that the cinemas expected more success than 58 million rubles at the start. In the top five box office leaders, "Deniskin Stories" has the lowest running time per session and the lowest average turnout, respectively, although this is the only fully family release. And Dragoonsky's book is a desktop book in almost every family. Perhaps the fact is that last year the series "Deniskin's Stories" took place and was filmed by the same Artemy Dragunsky, the grandson of Viktor Dragunsky, under the supervision of the Andreasyan producers. The public simply did not consider it necessary to go to the cinema for money for what they watched there for free by subscription.

This is how Caruso fought: the debut of Kharatyan's son and the new "Deniskin Stories"

What to watch at the cinema on the weekend

— The new film adaptation of the series of short stories by Viktor Dragunsky is aimed at about the same audience as "Batya 2. Grandfather," Olga Zinyakova notes. — Both projects are about nostalgia and memories of the carefree world of childhood. "Deniskin's Stories" could have shown a better result if the holdover hadn't interfered with it at the box office. In general, the novelty started a little less brightly than parts of a similar "Manyuni", but there are expectations that the rental of a family novelty will take a long time, even hitting the beginning of the summer holidays, and the results will be equal, plus or minus.

The fourth place is the horror "It. A New Chapter", which, of course, has nothing to do with Stephen King or the franchise. Hardly any of the viewers are unaware of this, so it can't even be called a hoax. Today it is just a marker for cinema visitors. They say, "this movie is like those horror movies from the It series that you love."

In the original, the horror is called "It feeds," and its main character is able to penetrate someone else's subconscious and see all sorts of nightmares there, of course. You can discuss as much as you want how ethical such references to hits are, but the market dictates its own rules. The fourth place and 27 million rubles prove that the method works. For this genre, even five years ago, these were not bad numbers, considering that this is a film without stars and any signs of a hit.

We have a cinema at home: a third of the audience does not go to the movies because of ticket prices

The price increase was most noticeable among the audience over 25 years old

In fifth place is the Yakut phenomenon "Diadorova. Against the current." In his homeland, 45 people per session go to him, like to Marvel blockbusters, that is, translating into a normal language, full houses at all screenings. These 9 million rubles over the past weekend are worth a lot: Yakutia is showing an example of how you can make a regional film for local distribution and get such incredible results that the whole country will talk about it. At least, professionals have been discussing this case since last weekend, when Diadorova was in third place at the national box office. And if the rest of the regions catch up, we will get a completely different movie from what we are used to and which, for the most part, the audience is somewhat bored with.