DISTRIBUTION / RELEASES / EXHIBITORS Poland / USA
Poland’s Furioza is the most popular non-English-language film on Netflix
by Ola Salwa
- The crime-drama revolving around two brothers has topped the streaming giant’s viewings list for two weeks
Poland’s Furioza, directed by Cyprian T Olencki, registered over 40 million viewing hours in two weeks – from 4-10 April (23.90 million) and from 11-17 April (17.80 million) – according to data provided by Netflix. If each viewer watched Furioza in movie-theatre mode (ie, from the beginning to the end credits), this would count for an audience of 185,271 and 128,057 people, respectively. During the same period, the most popular English-language film was The In Between, which racked up over 62 million hours of viewings.
Furioza had already been popular in local theatres, generating over 500,000 admissions since its release in October 2021. The story revolves around two brothers, one of whom is a hooligan and the head of the titular Furioza fight club. The other one, a doctor, returns to spy on his brother’s illegal drug business, which he is forced to do by an ex-girlfriend of his who now works for the police. The movie garnered mixed to negative reviews, but most critics praised the fierce performances of Mateusz Damięcki (Furioza’s wildest fighter) and Weronika Książkiewicz (the policewoman), who broke with her rom-com leading-lady image. Olencki’s film also has a series version, comprising four episodes, which is being streamed on the Polish Canal+ VoD website.
Polish content is proving to be popular on the Netflix global network, with another title, The Taming of the Shrewd, landing in the second spot in the top ten for the week of 11-17 April. The latter is a Netflix Original production, and the streamer plans to release 18 such Polish productions in 2022 and 2023, covering both films and series. Netflix’s investment in the Polish market is growing: the company plans to open an office in Warsaw and has revealed that it has already spent over €10 million in the country. Recently, the streamer hired Zuzanna Król, who was previously head of Production at Next Film (a Polish production and distribution company), as its manager of Local Original Production. At the same time, however, for the first time in its existence, Netflix has noted a drop in subscribers, as the service lost approximately 200,000 users.
The next Polish Netflix Original release is Hold Tight, based on Harlan Coben’s book, which is now available, as of 22 April.
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