Lay out straws: the tale "The Wicker Man" became the best novelty in the cinema

The fantasy romantic comedy "The Wicker Man" topped the rating of new releases of the Russian film distribution. However, according to the EAIS, her fees barely exceeded 42.6 million rubles, which was not enough to become the leader of the general box office. Even the next part of "Twilight" is located above, which is being re-shown in cinemas. The first place is held by the historical drama "The Birth of an Empire": she added 176.6 million rubles to her cash register. The results of the main premieres and the leaders of the box office are in the Izvestia review.

The "Eclipse" has begun

"The Wicker Man" is based on the short story of the same name by Ursula Wills-Jones. The action takes you to a medieval town. The focus is on a lonely fisherman (Olivia Colman), who has faced the ridicule of her neighbors all her life. One day, she decides to turn to a local artisan (Peter Dinklage) to weave a willow vine husband for her. The filmmakers abandoned computer graphics and made a real wicker husband costume. In it, Alexander Skarsgard embodied this image on the screen. He turned out to be the perfect spouse in literally everything — but it was his impeccability that became the reason for the attacks of others. The premiere of the film took place in January 2026 at the Sundance Film Festival, so the interested audience was waiting for the novelty.

— "The Wicker Man" is an actual dramedy or even a modern reinterpretation of the romcom genre. Two factors helped the experimental story reach the right audience — the wonderful star duo of Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgard, as well as high-quality thematic marketing materials. Promotional materials went viral on social networks long before they were released," Olga Zinyakova, general director of the KARO cinema chain, said in an interview with Izvestia.

However, the foreign novelty could not surpass the success of domestic releases. In her debut weekend, she earned about 43 million rubles and took only the sixth place in the box office. At the same time, the picture showed an average number of viewers per session on a par with the leaders.

Twilight was higher, in fifth position. The saga. The eclipse." Formally, the film can also be considered a rental novelty: on November 5, it returned to cinemas 16 years after the premiere. The next part of the vampire franchise earned 52.6 million rubles over the weekend.

— Even if the result is more modest than that of "Twilight" and "New Moon", this did not prevent "Eclipse" from climbing to the fifth line of the top and settling among the highest-grossing new films of the season. The vampire saga still attracts the unique opportunity to watch your favorite characters on the big screen," Zinyakova said.

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What to watch at the cinema this weekend

Historical confrontation

The leadership is held by Andrei Kravchuk's historical drama "The Birth of an Empire" about Peter I. She earned another 176.6 million rubles, surpassing the 600 million mark in total fees. Alexander Gorbatov plays the role of the emperor. Menshikov was played by Milos Bikovic.

Against this background, a new film adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables from the creators of The Count of Monte Cristo (2024) has modestly launched: the film collected only 10.7 million rubles over the weekend.

— The success of the new film adaptation of Les Miserables is far from the success of The Count of Monte Cristo: the picture did not generate that word of mouth, there were few materials on the Web. The competition at the box office also hinders — now you can watch the Russian costume drama "The Birth of an Empire" on big screens, which is closer and clearer to the general audience than the French historical film, explained Zinyakova.

On the second line of the box office with fees of 82.5 million rubles is the "Battle of Motors" with Ivan Yankovsky and Yura Borisov. Its total box office has exceeded one billion. The family fantasy "Miracle Yudo" with Sergey Bezrukov and Victoria Isakova closes the top 3. Last weekend, the film added another 61 million rubles to the box office. In the center of the plot is the daughter of the powerful magicians of Montenegro and the Swamp Maiden Otrada. In the company of her faithful servant, Chudo-Yudo, she will have to go into the world of ordinary people in order to gain magical powers.

The Rise of the Empire: historical drama about Peter the Great topped the Russian box office

Andrei Kravchuk's epic earned 235 million rubles over the weekend.

"The Tale of Lost Time" earned about 54 million rubles, which took the fourth place in the rating at the end of the weekend. "Morozko" with Elizaveta Boyarskaya and Kirill Zaitsev — 36 million rubles and the eighth place. At the box office, the project has to compete not only with "The Tale of Lost Time" and "Miracle Yudo", but also with the new adventure fantasy "The Living Book" starring Konstantin Khabensky, Ilya Sobolev and Nikita Kologrivy. Roma, a schoolboy, discovers magical publications in the house of a mysterious old man, the characters of which can leave the pages. This is how the sorcerer Chernomor, Ilya Muromets, Sherlock Holmes and other familiar characters make their way into the human world. The novelty has overtaken Morozko by just one step and several million rubles.