Play Hormone: Anna Jane's melodrama headed the box office

The film adaptation of Anna Jane's bestseller "Your Heart will be Broken" finished its opening weekend in first place, leaving far behind other novelties and holdovers with a huge family audience. The box office of the melodrama amounted to almost 200 million rubles, and the total number of viewers exceeded 400 thousand people. Of the other new products, only "Hermitage Cats 2" got into the top 5 of the box office, but they collected only 40 million rubles and 107 thousand viewers. Izvestia analyzes the preliminary results of the last March weekend, which may become a new starting point for the Russian film industry.

What will happen

There are more and more movie stories on the market, as evidenced not only by industry participants, but also by rental statistics. This year, new family releases are released every two weeks, and sometimes more often. We are not talking about small projects: the budgets of such films reach hundreds of millions of rubles, they involve popular actors and large-scale production resources.

However, in conditions of high competition, films begin to compete directly with each other, which leads to a shortage of box office and complicates further sales at other venues. Only in March, "The Frog Princess 2", "Kuzya the Housekeeper 2", "Doctor Gaf" and "Space Dog Lida", as well as the cartoon "Cats of the Hermitage 2" were released. At the same time, "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" and "Cheburashka 2" continued to be shown in cinemas, which also held the audience.

As a result, other genres of Russian cinema have shown less convincing results in recent months. According to the results of the quarter, the top ten highest-grossing films in Russia are dominated by family projects, according to the EAIS. With a more even release schedule, each of them could earn significantly more.

Now the precedent has been set, and no matter how 1.5–2 years later we will be overwhelmed by a new wave, and it will consist of romantic melodramas for schoolgirls and adult women under 35-40 years old. In front of the astonished market professionals, the film based on the book by the Russian writer of teenage novels Anna Jane "Your heart will be broken" collected 199 million rubles in the first weekend, although there are no national superstars in the main roles, nor a high budget. This is a very simple filmed movie about how a schoolgirl was bullied, she asked a local handsome bully to pretend to be her boyfriend, and then they started having such a passion that the screen melts. That is, from a production point of view, this is not even Twilight, where makeup, computer graphics, and special effects are needed, but rather Three Meters above the Sky, which has generated a lot of imitations and parodies and has become very popular with women all over the world.

It is also important that the film is based on the novel by Anna Jane, one of the most popular authors in the genre of teen romance on the Russian book market. Her books rarely become the object of academic criticism, but they are actively discussed by readers and regularly demonstrate high sales. A significant part of this audience came to the cinemas on the first weekend, and there is reason to expect further growth in interest. This time, they easily bypassed family content, including "Domovenka Kuzya 2", which collected 173 million rubles and took second place at the Russian box office. Although this brand is much more powerful, several generations of viewers have known the character since the cradle, and everyone liked the first film, and it is technologically much more complex.

Anna Jane has more than 50 books in the teen genre, and this is probably a gold mine, and there are many similar authors. It's hard to say how many of these kinds of films the market can handle, but the risks here are minimal, and the highest cost item will be the rights to the film adaptation. This content definitely has a viewer.

The Safety Cat: a film based on Anna Jane, the dog Lida and the secrets of the Hermitage

What to watch at the cinema this weekend

"Cats of the Hermitage" became the most successful family novelty

The rest of the top Russian box office figures are sharply lagging behind the two leaders. The third place went to the cartoon "Cats of the Hermitage 2: The Secret of the Egyptian Hall", they have 40 million rubles, that is, four and a half times less than that of "Kuzi". Nine people per session is a very low figure, but another family novelty of the weekend, the fairy tale "Space Dog Lida", has a catastrophic situation.: There were an average of six viewers per session. The film ended the weekend in 9th place with 16 million rubles, despite the stellar cast - Bezrukov, Tkachuk, Stychkin, Peresild, Bortich. The market is oversaturated.

The ironic adventurous thriller "The Heir" is in fourth place — 29 million rubles. The military action game "The Kid" with Gleb Kalyuzhny lagged behind him — 21 million rubles. These holders are refining their cash register, they have it well within expectations. "Heir" will soon reach the "total" of 300 million rubles, "Baby" is about to break the 200 million rubles mark, these are normal, even good figures, given the specifics of the releases.

Most likely, in the coming weekend, the alignment of the leaders will remain about the same: there are no bright family or any other new products planned. Perhaps some of the audience will go to the comedy with Mikhail Galustyan "The King of my Love", and someone will choose the drama with Mark Edelstein "The Cosmos falls asleep", but they have little chance of breaking into the top 3. But an intrigued female audience can even bring an increase to the "Heart" next weekend, and then high-minded intellectuals will have to take up her novels and find out why they are in such demand now.