09/03/2005

With the excellent opening weekend results of Ole Christian Madsens’ drama Angels In fast Motion (Nordkraft) which attracted over 36,000 people in only three days, Danish titles have already passed the 1m admissions mark at home, a figure reached only in the middle of the year in 2004 according to figures released today by the Danish Film Institute.

The good start of Ole Christian Madsen’s third feature film is excellent news for Nimbus Film who also produced last year’s biggest hit: the multi-awarded King’s Game (Kongekabale) which sold an extra 40,000 tickets in 2005 and totals over 555,000 admissions.

The two biggest 2005 hits so far are Tomas Villum Jensen’s The Sun King (Solkongen) produced by Thura Film and starring the famous local actor Nikolai Lie Kaas (Brothers), and Carsten Mylleryp’s children film Oskar & Josefine produced by Cosmo Film. Both released on 11 February have sold respectively 233,365 admissions from 68 prints and 221,642 admissions from 88 prints.

Three titles released last December are still holding very well with nearly 100,000 admissions each since January: the children films The Fakir (Fakiren fra Bolbao) produced by M & M and Lost generation (Familien Gregersen) produced by Regner Grasten Filmrettigheder , as well as Nicolas Winding Refn’s action thriller Pusher II [+see also:
trailer
film profile] produced by NWR.
Jackob Thuesen’s Accused (Anklaget) selected in competition at the last Berlinale has performed reasonably considering its controversial subject matter with over 41,000 tickets sold since the end of January.

But two titles from established Danish directors have had very disappointing results: Thomas Vinterberg’s Dear Wendy which only attracted 13,284 people in three weeks from 14 prints, in spite of its big cast (Jamie Bell, Bill Pullman, Chris Owen) and the script written by Lars von Trier, while The Leap (Springet) by veteran director Henning Carlsen sold only 3,000 tickets from 25 prints since its 25 February release.