Canet and Kassovitz attract U.S. audiences

05/09/2008

After its successful UK theatrical run last summer (distribution: Revolver Entertainment), Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is now attracting U.S. filmgoers. The feature – released by Music Box on July 6 on six screens – which had drawn 3 million to screens in France and won four Césars in 2007 (including Best Director) – has totalled $4.38m in receipts at the end of its ninth week of release in the U.S. on a now greater combination of 102 prints.

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Better again, weekly admissions are still growing (up 37.8% last week), are showing the power of word-of-mouth. These results allow the film to equal the performance realised this week in the US box office by Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marc-Antoine Robert
interview: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Pa…
film profile]. Guillaume Canet’s feature, adapted from a Harlan Coben detective story has yet to find a buyer in Spain. But according to EuropaCorp, who are handling international sales, a distributor has recently showed interest. Meanwhile, buyers in Italy and Germany – RAI Cinema and Telepool respectively – have still not scheduled a release.

The US are also reserving a warm welcome for French title, Mathieu Kassovitz’s Babylon A.D. [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see article), which jumped to second place at the box office in its first week with receipts of $12.7m on 3,390 prints released by Twentieth Century-Fox. This good start guarantees the film a place in the top 15 best results ever for French films. As for the director who has openly criticised U.S. pressures during the filming and editing of Babylon A.D., he is busy preparing his next film, L’Ordre et la morale (“Order and Morals”).

These U.S. successes are a good omen for the two-part work directed by Jean-François Richet on gangster Jacques Mesrine ( Public Enemy Number One (Part 1) [+see also:
trailer
film profile]). Its distributor Senator Entertainment US, which will also handle its U.S. release, has already compared with enthusiasm the two films starring lead actor Vincent Cassel with his performance in Scorsese’s Affranchis and de Palma’s Scarface. The first edition will have its international premiere on September 11 at the Toronto Film Festival (see news).