False start for new films by Luc Besson and Woody Allen at the French box office

The Creator tops the rankings with twice as many entries as DogMan. (Source: Le Film Français)

A few weeks ago, the industry was scandalized to see the trio Polansky/Allen/Besson, all three suspected of sexual assault, invited to the Venice Film Festival to defend their new films. Unfortunately for DogMan And Stroke of luckmade by the last two, the reality of the box office is harsher than the sweetness of the Lido.

They were both released this Wednesday in France, and they are off to a rather bad start. DogMan occupies second place in the ranking with 16,239 entries (without previews), i.e. half as many as The Creator which had the best start for new releases with 31,281 tickets sold. DogMan made a score much lower than that of the previous film of Besson, Annawhich reached 79,667 tickets on its first day of release in 2019 – for more than 700,000 admissions in total.

DogMan: Fascinating Caleb Landry Jones (review)

Concerning Stroke of luckthe fiftieth film of Woody Allen, shot with a three-star French cast, it reached fifth place in the ranking with 10,580 admissions (without previews). Contrary to Besson, Woody Allen gets off to a much better start than his previous film Rifkin’s Festival in 2022, which brought only 5,440 spectators to theaters, half as many as Stroke of luck. He had finished his race below 100,000 tickets, while Match Point (2005) to Café Society (2016), most of his creations recorded around a million entries (Vicky Cristina Barcelona And Midnight in Paris were even closer to 2 million).

New start with Franck Dubosc And The Goldman Trial of Cedric Kahn follow each other in third and fourth place in the ranking with a respective total of 16,073 and 14,052 entries. It will be interesting to see the evolution of the box office in the first week to see the trajectory of the new releases.

Stroke of luck: Woody Allen disappoints (review)