13/12/2005

Harry Potter ruled the Dutch box office for the third week in a row, with somewhat disappointing results for the first weekend of home-grown kids frightener De griezelbus (The bus of creeps) as well as the expected steep drop off for local holiday tie-in Het paard van Sinterklaas (St Nicholas’ horse).

Harry Potter and the goblet of fire remained the film with both the highest overall gross (€ 973.000) and the highest per screen average (€ 3714/screen). The British boy wizard was no competition for local children’s film De griezelbus, another Warner Bros film, which opened to a disappointing gross of just over € 100.000 for a meagre € 949 per screen. Pieter Kuijpers’ adaptation of the Paul van Loon novel series opened to generally positive reviews but suffered from heavy competition for children’s interest from Potter as well as the animated Disney release Chicken Little; together these occupied over a third of all screens.

A heavy drop off was expected for Het paard van Sinterklaas in its first weekend after the Saint’s holiday, though perhaps not as steep as the posted 88% for a measly € 233 screen average. The film has nevertheless been very profitable for distributor Warner Bros, with a total gross of over € 2 million in the Netherlands as well as an excellent Belgian run. The film will also vie for the Glass Bear for best children’s film at the upcoming Berlinale.

A small light on the horizon was the re-entry into the top twenty of the locally produced Palestinian film Paradise now [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in its eighth week of release. It has grossed over € 120.000 to date. Foreign limited release successes were Herzog’s Grizzly man and Meirelles’ The constant Gardener [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], with both a € 1800 screen average, and A good woman and Le temps qui reste [+see also:
trailer
film profile], with a € 1100+ screen average.