Asterix leads Lusomundo successful early 2008

by Vitor Pinto

12/03/2008 - Frédéric Forestier's Asterix at the Olympic Games [trailer] is making a splash not only at the French box office. A similar phenomenon is taking place in Portugal, where the French/Spanish/German co-production has become the most seen title of the first two months of 2008.

Distributed by Lusomundo on 167 screens, the new adventures of the famous comics character starring Gerard Depardieu and Clovis Cornillac has garnered 364,131 admissions and grossed €1.58m to date.

Lusomundo is the most successful distribution company so far this year with a total of seven films in the top ten. Besides Asterix, they also have two other European titles in the ranking: the award-winning British-French co-production Atonement [trailer] is in fourth place (89,023 admissions – €393,657) and the latest film by local veteran director António-Pedro Vasconcelos, Call Girl [trailer] (33,611 admissions – €150,024), in ninth place.

Other European titles in the charts include Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream [trailer] and Claude Berri's Hunting and Gathering [trailer] (both also distributed by Lusomundo) are 27th and 33rd respectively, while the Atalanta releases of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s latest two films, Three Times and The Flight of the Red Balloon [trailer], together grossed only €8,771.