He's driving quietly: "Return to Silent Hill" became a sensation in Russia

The most successful start of the weekend, "Return to Silent Hill," unexpectedly beat both the January holdovers and its competitors, who started at the same time. Even the domestic fantasy action film Lefty could not compete with the story that the entire target audience of Silent Hill already knows by heart, because the film follows the plot of the popular video game in almost everything. And although Cheburashka 2 is still the undisputed leader at the box office, Silent Hill is even on his heels, which is a surprise for everyone who followed the difficult fate of this project. Izvestia analyzes the results of the Russian film weekend.

Unstoppable-2,

or at what point will the cash register of the new Cheburashka stop?

Cheburashka 2, the winner of the "New Year's battle" of releases, will no longer catch up with the first part, not only in terms of the number of viewers, but also, obviously, at the box office. But this weekend he finished first again, perhaps for the last time, because the lead over the competition no longer looks so significant.

The film has now collected 197 million rubles, compared to 338 million last weekend. Its total box office is 5,715 billion rubles, the second place in the history of the domestic film distribution, because Cheburashka 1 stands unattainably on the first with 6.8 billion rubles. Another thing is that the difference in the number of viewers in the two parts of the franchise is very impressive: the pioneer attracted more than 22 million viewers to the cinemas, the sequel — a little more than 11 million. Twice as much. True, the rental has not ended yet, but it is clear that interest in the fairy tale is rapidly fading, perhaps the next wave of popularity awaits it when it officially comes online. It's hard to say how much pirated copies made life difficult for the release — most likely, in no way, because in this case we are talking about a form of leisure time with children outside the home and there is no substitute for watching a "screen" on a small screen.

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Return to Silent Hill finished in second place after Cheburashka. And this is really a shock for everyone, perhaps, including the distributors of the picture. Clouds began to gather over the release last week. International film publishers released their first reviews, and every single one of them was devastating. Then the audience went to watch, and a wave of haight arose. Silent Hill currently has an exorbitant 16% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 30% from non—professional audiences. The Box Office Mojo website reports that the film grossed $3 million in the United States, which is a flop, although, by the way, not so deafening, 7th place at the weekend box office.

Is that the case in Russia! Our "Return to Silent Hill" almost caught up with "Cheburashka" this weekend. Cheburashka has 197 million rubles, Silent Hill has 179 million rubles, the difference is not that big. And the operating time per session is even slightly higher for CX.

"The original film is considered one of the best adaptations of video games, so fans had high expectations," explains Olga Zinyakova, president of the KARO cinema chain. — It's a working brand. The director of the first film adaptation returned to the creation of the new part of "Return to Silent Hill", which fuels interest. Given the lack of serious competitors within the genre, the new "Silent Hill" may stay in the top for a few more weeks.

Indeed, the domestic fan base of the franchise turned out to be incredibly responsible and did not waste time on "pirates", went to the cinema. No wonder the director of the film, Christophe Gan, told Izvestia in an interview that when he came to Moscow with his other painting, Silent Hill fans found him on Red Square and rushed to him for autographs.

"At that moment, I realized how much people in Russia love Silent Hill," says Gan. "It was an incredibly pleasant and unexpected experience that stayed with me. In general, I understand that new films about Silent Hill are very much expected in Russia. And I love this passion!

He was not mistaken in anything, and the skeptics are put to shame. The mystical horror became a hit.

Why did Lefty fail

Last week's hit "The Maid," a thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Swinney, took third place, not too far behind "Silent Hill." This time he collected 168 million rubles, and the operating time for the session is simply off the scale, this time it is the highest among the releases of the official rental, more than 25 thousand rubles.

Against this background, the "Lefty", who was waited for with great impatience, wondering if this would turn out to be a new "Sherlock Holmes" (who is with Downey Jr.) or at least a "Duelist". But somewhere something didn't work, and the audience didn't come to the film. Lefty has the lowest operating time in the top 12 of the Russian box office - 6.6 thousand rubles. This means that the cinemas believed in the release, gave it not just a lot of screenings, but generally the most this weekend, a quarter of all screenings in the country. But the viewer chose another movie. As a result, Lefty is in fourth place in terms of fees, he has 128 million rubles.

— After the rental overflowing with family releases during the New Year's battle, the viewer began to prefer alternatives to genres, — says Olga Zinyakova. — The public has a real hunger for high-quality high-budget releases for an adult audience. Therefore, the thriller "The Maid" and the horror "Return to Silent Hill" are in second and third places, respectively. Lefty will continue to increase its box office, but a good sundress of competing releases prevents it from becoming a leader.

In fifth place, according to the EAIS, is the domestic short film "Sonata", it earned 73 million rubles, and it has a huge operating time per session, which means Hollywood cinema, and, most likely, it is "Avatar 3".

This weekend, fresh domestic films may break into the top five: the comedies "Comment on This" with Alexander Petrov and "Daddy Can" with Alexandra Revva, as well as the sports drama "The Golden Double" with Egor Beroev.