27/05/2009

Boosted by the highly publicised controversy at Cannes and the festival’s Best Actress Award for Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lars von Trier’s Antichrist [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lars von Trier
film profile] had a strong opening on its home turf, selling over 18,000 admissions from 17 screens after six days, to take fourth place at the box office.

Distributed by Nordisk Film, the arthouse horror title opened in Denmark on May 20, two days after its official competition screening at Cannes. In picked up 9,275 admissions on its opening weekend and by Tuesday morning the number had doubled at 18,326.

“These are very good results compared to Manderlay [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which also opened in connection with Cannes, on 26 screens in 2005, and had less than 4,000 admissions in its opening weekend. It proves that our strategy of creating a big hype at the festival and releasing the film only two days after the official screening in Cannes, really worked,” said Nordisk’s Market Director in Denmark, Jan Lehmann.

Von Trier’s last film to score with Danish audiences was Dogville [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2003 (109,735 admissions). But his two following films, Manderlay and The Boss of It All [+see also:
trailer
film profile], flopped at the box office, with only 21,213 and 15,340 admissions each.

After Italy and Denmark, the Zentropa production will open this Friday in Poland (Gutek Film), then on June 3 in France (Les Films du Losange) and on June 5 in Norway, Sweden and Finland (Nordisk Film).