BOX OFFICE Germany
Audiences flock to The Reader
by B.P.
03/03/2009 - This weekend, German audiences flocked to cinemas to see Stephen Daldry’s The Reader [trailer], which earned UK actress Kate Winslet a Golden Globe and an Oscar this year.
The German/US co-production – released last Thursday by Senator – naturally piqued the enthusiasm of German viewers, for it is adapted from German lawyer Bernhard Schlink’s novel and tells an unconventional love story set against the backdrop of the country’s history.
The film features German Shooting Star 2009 David Kross (see interview), whom audiences will recognise from the hits Tough Enough [trailer] and Krabat [trailer].
The Reader accounted for 340,000 of the 1.8m admissions (figures provided by kinozeit) garnered in theatres this weekend. It outperformed last week’s box office number one, the children’s film Lilly the Witch: The Dragon and the Magic Book by Stefan Ruzowitzky (director of The Counterfeiters [trailer], last year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner).
Ruzowitzky’s title – launched by Walt Disney on February 19 – nonetheless claims second position, with 230,000 viewers. In third place is US film Yes Man (150,000 admissions).
(Translated from French)
