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BOX OFFICE France

Les poupées russes torpedoes Batman

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French production has found its summer champion with Les poupées russes by Cédric Klapisch which easily dominated the American blockbuster Batman in the first week in the theatres. With 662,000 admissions from a total of 550 prints from (Mars Distribution ), the follow up to L’auberge espagnole went to the top of the box office with an average of more than 1,200 admissions per print. Its American competitor managed only 452,000 spectators despite showing on 220 more screens (770 prints with an average of 588 tickets per print).

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Over and above the artistic quality, recognised by the press, of the poupées russes, (including even the critics normally dismissive of Klapisch’s popular cinema), it’s worth underlining the release strategy for the film. As with L’auberge espagnole,, distribution was set for mid-June, normally a time with a feeble programme and aided by the event La Fête du Cinéma organised for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in more than 5,000 French cinemas by the National Federation for French Cinema (FNCF) on the basis of one ticket at full price and the next four at four euros.

Also, the National Film Centre (CNC) has just published its statistics for releases in 2004 in France. In total, 534 features were distributed of which 229 productions were French. 76,500 prints were released, a record (71,700 in 2003) with a strong increase in the 200 – 400 print bracket. However, French films accumulated 41 % prints against 48 % for American films. Nonetheless, the rotation of films on the bill has accelerated at a worrying rate since 22 weeks of 2004 saw new films monopolising more than 30 % of the French screens (against 3 weeks in 1996 and 15 weeks in 2003).

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(Translated from French)

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