French box office: Windmill, Les Misérables and Ducobu to the million
French films are popular at the start of autumn in cinemas. Six French productions occupy the first six places in the ranking.
The end of the All Saints’ Day school holidays contributed to a pleasing dynamic in theaters, from which French cinema greatly benefited.
Mill at the top
It is another French production which occupies the head of the national box office this Wednesday. Millfrom Hungarian director László Nemes, takes the helm. Gilles Lellouche, in the costume of the resistance fighter tortured by Klaus Barbie, has already attracted nearly 350,000 spectators (including previews) after a week of operation.
An excellent score for this grueling historical film, screened in less than 500 theaters across the country. It’s already more than The Son of Saulawarded an Oscar, the filmmaker’s first seminal film, which attracted just over 200,000 spectators in France in 2016.
Les Miserables keep second place
Behind, Les Miserables with Vincent Lindon and Tahar Rahim reaches the milestone of one million spectators in 749 cinemas.
With nearly 250,000 additional admissions in the third week, the adaptation of Victor Hugo reached 1.15 million spectators. The great literary fresco brought to the screen by Fred Cavayé will still do significantly less – it has already been written – than The Three Musketeers Or The Count of Monte Cristo.
Karma gets on the podium
Taking advantage of positive word of mouth, Karma by Guillaume Canet, maintains good attendance dynamics (-25%) and rises to third place in the ranking. It has already far exceeded half a million cumulative entries for its second week.
With almost 600,000 spectators, its thriller led by Marion Cotillard is already doing better than Himthe filmmaker’s previous film, if we put aside the franchise Asterix. Released in October 2021, Him had ended his career under 200,000 spectators.
Ducobu towards his record
Leader last week, Ducobu falls from the podium and finds himself in fourth place in the ranking. But four weeks after its release, the new film in the saga, directed by Élie Semoun, continued to take advantage of the last days of school leave to boost its admissions in a huge number of more than 1,000 theaters.
Ducobu and the ghost of Saint-Potache becomes a millionaire: with 1.20 million tickets sold, he exceeds Ducobu goes green (2024) and Ducobu president (2022), and is getting closer to the biggest success of the saga, still held by Ducobu 3 (which had accumulated 1.5 million admissions in 2020).
The Phantom of the Opera enters the Top 5
Another big novelty of the week with Mill, THE Phantom of the Opera completes the Top 5.
The new version by Alexandre Castagnetti attracted 136,000 spectators in 530 theaters for its first week (including AVP).
Mochy in front of Dreamworks
Just behind, we still find French production. Mochya Franco-Belgian animated film by Jérémie Degruson and Yanis Belaid, had a solid third week in more than 700 theaters, and now has nearly 600,000 spectators, having made the most of the holidays.
It’s just a head ahead of Dreamworks’ big Hollywood animated film, The Island of Memorieswhich reached 350,000 entries in two weeks.
Clayface tumbles
Another American film that disappoints: Clayface already falling to tenth place at the French box office. James Gunn’s new DC Universe opus has 280,000 entries in total and will make less than Supergirl (close of 500,000 spectators) and less than Superman (1.6 million) on arrival.
Hope starts in 9th position
Finally, we can note the interesting start of the critically acclaimed South Korean science fiction film. Na Hong-jin’s new film currently has 110,000 admissions in France, in less than 200 theaters. This is the filmmaker’s record for us, knowing that The Strangers had only totaled 60,000 admissions at the French box office in 2016.
But proof of the positive echoes around Hope – which is on the cover of Première this month – the film has the second best average of the week (27 per screening) behind Mill.
