02/03/2006

French films maintain their dominance at the top of the box office, in the wake of the phenomenal success of Les Bronzés 3 - Amis pour la vie [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Patrice Leconte’s comedy (see interview) kept its grip on first place for the fourth consecutive week with an impressive total of 9.16m spectators (950 screens, Warner).

In second place is Danièle Thompson’s Orchestra Seats [+see also:
trailer
film profile] which passed the million ticket mark in two weeks on a total of 475 screens (Mars Distribution ). The other film on the week’s podium is a new arrival, Claude Chabrol’s Comedy of Power [+see also:
trailer
film profile] with 391,000 spectators, released on 282 screens by Pan Européenne, making it the best per-screen average of the week (1,387).

Overall, these three films captured 39% of the market.

Another French title, Isabelle Mergault’s Je vous trouve très beau [+see also:
trailer
film profile] made the Top 10, dropping only 11% in its seventh week on 451 screens (distribution Gaumont Columbia Tristar). This stability allowed the film, starring Michel Blanc, to achieve a total of 2.5m admissions.

As far as non-local European production is concerned, of note is the continuing success of UK film Nanny McPhee (500,000 admissions on 198 screens over three weeks, Mars Distribution) and the German animated film The Little Polar Bear 2 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (120,000 spectators, Gebeka Films).

Lastly, riding on the success of The Beat My Heart Skipped [+see also:
trailer
film profile] at the Cesar Awards, UGC yesterday re-released Jacques Audiard’s film on 105 screens.

(Translated from French)