20/03/2008

A true Gallic phenomenon, Dany Boon’s comedy Welcome to the Land of Shtis [+see also:
trailer
film profile] continues its triumphant run. Having attracted a further 3.63 million viewers in its third week (a drop of 8% only compared to the seven previous days), the feature starring the director and Kad Merad has now reached almost 12.6m admissions and €74m at the box office.

This windfall success will benefit its producers (Pathé Renn and Hirsch), co-producers (TF1 Films Productions and the CRRAV) and distributor (Pathé), as well as Boon, who receives a profit share of €0.30 per admission after the first 2m viewers.

Shtis has already claimed 14th place in the French box office chart of all time and will probably make it into the top five next week, outperforming legendary titles Ben-Hur, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Once Upon a Time in the West.

Sure to outstrip the 14.37m admissions for Asterix & Obélix: Mission Cleopatra in 2002, the film can even set its sights on the title of biggest domestic hit of all time, an honour currently held by Gérard Oury’s Don’t Look Now – We’re being Shot At (17.27m admissions in 1968 and second place in box office history, behind the 1997 film Titanic, which drew 20.64m viewers). Such an ambition befits duo Boon and Merad, who has been compared by some critics to Bourvil and Louis de Funès.

Eclipsed by the Shtis phenomenon, other French films are nonetheless performing well in theatres. Successful titles include Olivier Marchal’s dark thriller MR 73 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (450,000 admissions in its first week – distribution Gaumont); Jean-Paul Salomé’s Female Agents [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (570,000 viewers in two weeks – TFM Distribution); Pierre Morel’s Taken [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (715,000 admissions in three weeks – distribution EuropaCorp); and Cédric Klapisch’s Paris [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (1.57m admissions in four weeks – Mars Distribution).

Only one US feature (10,000 B.C.) last week managed to creep into the box-office top seven in which all the titles benefited from the 9th edition of the Printemps du Cinéma (March 16-18) organised by the National Federation of French Cinemas, with admission prices at €3.50 in theatres across France.

(Translated from French)