French box office: Wish starts better than Elementary, Napoléon millionaire

The Boy and the Heron officially becomes Hayao Miyazaki’s biggest success here. (Source: Le Film Français)

It is under the lucky star of Star, a luminous character supporting Asha in her quest, that wish appears in first position at the French box office this week with 488,089 admissions recorded in 623 theaters. And more than 600,000 if we count its previews at the Grand Rex.

Within animated productions from Disney studios, this is far from being a record, Snow Queen having for example started with 862,291 tickets sold at the start in 2013, not counting its previews – then it ended up accumulating 5 million tickets. wish however, stands out by surpassing Elementary by Pixar, which failed to exceed 430,000 admissions during its first week this summer. That said, the success of this film happened over time, helped by good word of mouth. The the “Disney Christmas” did not completely convince The critics.

Animation projects are delighting the French public, since the latest filmHayao Miyazaki The Boy and the Heron stays the course for its fifth week with 79,338 spectators in theaters. The film placed in seventh position at the French box office.

At the time of writing these lines, it is in the process of exceeding Ponyothanks to 1,448,366 admissions in total, to become the Japanese filmmaker’s biggest success in France (for the moment, the story of the little fish is just ahead with precisely 1,464,473 tickets exchanged in 2008).

A few months later its phenomenal success in his country of origin (all the more spectacular since he left there without promotion), The Boy and the Heron confirms the popularity of Ghibli’s works in the eyes of the public. This good score can also be explained by the number of copies, significantly higher than usual (790 copies compared to an average of 185 for Miyazaki’s other projects). Reviews were positiveWild Bunch Distribution pulled out all the stops and it paid off!

The top 10 this week is made up half of new releases. In third position, The braid thus begins its first week with 306,073 admissions (including 42,000 preview admissions), a figure higher than those accumulated by the two previous films of Laetitia Colombani : He Loves Me … He Loves Me Not (2002) and My stars and me (2008) during their first week in theaters. It must be said that she adapts a bestseller here “feel good”.

A little lower, Time to loveby Katell Quillévéré, Perfect Daysby Wim Wenders, and Thanksgiving: Horror Week, ofEli Roth are entering the tricolor trend for their very first week. The first two attracted around 100,000 spectators, and the horror film recorded 75,871 admissions. Hailed by critics, it surpasses contagion Cabin Fever (2004) which did not exceed 70,000 spectators during its first week of screening, but did less well thanHostelby the same director (2006).

On the side of the continuities, behind Asha and her star, a military march resonates with Napoleon of Ridley Scott. If its attendance drops by half in the second week, the biopic takes revenge on Gucci which it easily manages to surpass (1,145,657 entries in two weeks compared to 798,419 in 2021). Thanks to the 381,238 cumulative admissions this week, the biopic on the sovereign therefore quietly passes the million spectator mark.

A score also achieved by the prequel to Hunger Games, which is maintained well in the third week. In conclusion of this top, The Marvels marks its definitive failure in French cinemas – a logical continuation after the failure encountered in the United States. For its fourth week, the latest MCU film does not attract 80,000 spectators in France and accumulates less than 800,000.

French weekly box office from November 29 to December 5, 2023: