The week leading up to the opening of the Cannes film festival on May 12th was the safest slot for a number of films trying to open & get some attention. For the two local comedies & the auteur Hollywood thriller that released last Wednesday, the name of the game was getting critical attention or sending their stars on the French media trail, before every film critic & inch of coverage shifts to the Riviera. These three will be directly contending with bigger fish opening after their Cannes premieres. And that’s saying nothing about US releases which are continuing apace. With the very hearty reaction *Michael* & *TDWP2* have gotten, the national box-office is now chugging along nicely. What we ended up with was 5 new releases in the top 10. That’s an impressive result, but it’s the already released heavyweights that held on to the top spots.
**FIGHT!**
*Mortal Kombat 2* ended up at a disappointing 7^(th) place by pulling-in 122k intrigued attendees. A lot has been made about the lack of cultural penetration of the 2021 film, due to the streaming or PVOD release in many countries. That film had a chaotic roll-out in France with the local distributor first targeting a February, then April 2021, theatrical release & advertising both, before delaying again and again. In the end, they made perhaps the worst choice, dropping the film as a PVOD exclusive months after it had hit streaming in every other country. I didn’t managed to find sales metrics, but it can’t be too surprising that the sequel struggled. It’s opening week was just a hair behind *Clown in a Corn Field* or last year’s *Anaconda* in their respective first weeks. David McKenzie’s latest action-thriller *Fuse* just barely qualified for the top 10. Tellingly, *Fuse*’s weekly total was a meagre 1k tickets ahead of number 11, *Santiago – The Camino Therapy* which is in it’s 6^(th) week. It’s McKenzie’s worst opening yet in France, despite the cast, probably at least in part due to the weak marketing & the boring adapted title chosen for it’s release in France: The Criminals. I’ll give it points for being concise, but that’s all I’m giving it. French critics were as enthusiastic as always with this director, but with cinephiles likely to focus more on Cannes premieres in coming weeks I don’t see anyway this could end up as a sleeper success.
In a tale as old as time at the French box-office, genre films struggled but two new local comedies made the biggest splash. With an almost identical number of copies, it’s Pour le Plaisir *(For Kicks)* which managed to really find a spot. With a risqué plot of a mature couple designing an adult toy to revive their sex life only to end up going into business with it, there was every risk even the French would find this a little off-putting as a date movie. Navigating that so well is probably down to *For Kicks’* extremely adept casting. Getting two likeable softies like François Cluzet & Audrey Lamy to lead was ideal. Both are favourites of the 40-80 audience. Lamy is really emerging as a minor box-office asset in 2026, after starring in the aforementioned *Santiago – The Compostella Therapy.* Similar to that film, critics found *For Kicks* formulaic but undeniably entertaining & audiences gave it an excellent 3,9/5 stars on Allociné (a site that skews younger than the target audience, at that).
*For Kicks &* it’s 272k tickets sold mean it’s almost guaranteed to make a profit. Things are a bit less clear-cut at number 6 with C’est Quoi l’Amour? (*What is Love?)*. This romantic comedy has also gotten a solid reception from all sides, despite a done to death plot. The mix of heart & family antics is *Little Miss Sunshine*-adjacent – like that movie, it’s hard to ignore the cast. With a mix of dramatic leads in Mélanie Thierry (best known internationally for *The Zero Theorem* or *Da Five Bloods) &* established comedic actors, along with appealing turns from the child actors, I could see this working better than last month’s *Those Who Matter*. Despite a sensible budget, it’ll need a groundswell of WOM to turn it’s 157k adm. opening into the 700k it roughly needs to break-even and it might struggle for eyeballs, given the alternatives. Two comedies like these finding their feet in the same week is already a rare thing in the 2020s. Especially since a lot of the oxygen in the room was already taken up by *The Devil Wears Prada 2* or lightly comedic fare like *Just an Illusion* & *The Electric Kiss* (which performed well in wide previews through Tuesday, but won’t counted in box-office numbers until next week).
Meanwhile, the three-day event release of *Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft* managed the rare feat of actually breaking into the top 10. If you take into account the very few screenings & exceptionally high ticket price (30-40€ per person, including the 3D premium), it’s a clear display of what event releases can bring to theaters, especially when there’s a very motivated fanbase to cater to.
1 Comment
The week leading up to the opening of the Cannes film festival on May 12th was the safest slot for a number of films trying to open & get some attention. For the two local comedies & the auteur Hollywood thriller that released last Wednesday, the name of the game was getting critical attention or sending their stars on the French media trail, before every film critic & inch of coverage shifts to the Riviera. These three will be directly contending with bigger fish opening after their Cannes premieres. And that’s saying nothing about US releases which are continuing apace. With the very hearty reaction *Michael* & *TDWP2* have gotten, the national box-office is now chugging along nicely. What we ended up with was 5 new releases in the top 10. That’s an impressive result, but it’s the already released heavyweights that held on to the top spots.
**FIGHT!**
*Mortal Kombat 2* ended up at a disappointing 7^(th) place by pulling-in 122k intrigued attendees. A lot has been made about the lack of cultural penetration of the 2021 film, due to the streaming or PVOD release in many countries. That film had a chaotic roll-out in France with the local distributor first targeting a February, then April 2021, theatrical release & advertising both, before delaying again and again. In the end, they made perhaps the worst choice, dropping the film as a PVOD exclusive months after it had hit streaming in every other country. I didn’t managed to find sales metrics, but it can’t be too surprising that the sequel struggled. It’s opening week was just a hair behind *Clown in a Corn Field* or last year’s *Anaconda* in their respective first weeks. David McKenzie’s latest action-thriller *Fuse* just barely qualified for the top 10. Tellingly, *Fuse*’s weekly total was a meagre 1k tickets ahead of number 11, *Santiago – The Camino Therapy* which is in it’s 6^(th) week. It’s McKenzie’s worst opening yet in France, despite the cast, probably at least in part due to the weak marketing & the boring adapted title chosen for it’s release in France: The Criminals. I’ll give it points for being concise, but that’s all I’m giving it. French critics were as enthusiastic as always with this director, but with cinephiles likely to focus more on Cannes premieres in coming weeks I don’t see anyway this could end up as a sleeper success.
In a tale as old as time at the French box-office, genre films struggled but two new local comedies made the biggest splash. With an almost identical number of copies, it’s Pour le Plaisir *(For Kicks)* which managed to really find a spot. With a risqué plot of a mature couple designing an adult toy to revive their sex life only to end up going into business with it, there was every risk even the French would find this a little off-putting as a date movie. Navigating that so well is probably down to *For Kicks’* extremely adept casting. Getting two likeable softies like François Cluzet & Audrey Lamy to lead was ideal. Both are favourites of the 40-80 audience. Lamy is really emerging as a minor box-office asset in 2026, after starring in the aforementioned *Santiago – The Compostella Therapy.* Similar to that film, critics found *For Kicks* formulaic but undeniably entertaining & audiences gave it an excellent 3,9/5 stars on Allociné (a site that skews younger than the target audience, at that).
*For Kicks &* it’s 272k tickets sold mean it’s almost guaranteed to make a profit. Things are a bit less clear-cut at number 6 with C’est Quoi l’Amour? (*What is Love?)*. This romantic comedy has also gotten a solid reception from all sides, despite a done to death plot. The mix of heart & family antics is *Little Miss Sunshine*-adjacent – like that movie, it’s hard to ignore the cast. With a mix of dramatic leads in Mélanie Thierry (best known internationally for *The Zero Theorem* or *Da Five Bloods) &* established comedic actors, along with appealing turns from the child actors, I could see this working better than last month’s *Those Who Matter*. Despite a sensible budget, it’ll need a groundswell of WOM to turn it’s 157k adm. opening into the 700k it roughly needs to break-even and it might struggle for eyeballs, given the alternatives. Two comedies like these finding their feet in the same week is already a rare thing in the 2020s. Especially since a lot of the oxygen in the room was already taken up by *The Devil Wears Prada 2* or lightly comedic fare like *Just an Illusion* & *The Electric Kiss* (which performed well in wide previews through Tuesday, but won’t counted in box-office numbers until next week).
Meanwhile, the three-day event release of *Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft* managed the rare feat of actually breaking into the top 10. If you take into account the very few screenings & exceptionally high ticket price (30-40€ per person, including the 3D premium), it’s a clear display of what event releases can bring to theaters, especially when there’s a very motivated fanbase to cater to.