MOSCOW -- Box office for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States has continued to register a healthy rise -- more than 40% year-on-year in the four-month period to the end of February.
With a considerable portion of such receipts coming now from local fare, it's still unclear whether domestic productions can continue to sustain comparable growth.
National TV station Channel 1 became the territory's first major commercial producer, starting with last year's runaway hit "Night Watch" and continuing with this year's record-breaker "Turkish Gambit."
Rival Central Partnership is now proving competitive on the local production front. Headed by Ruben Dishdishyan, the company began as a TV program producer, then moved into theatrical distribution before launching productions like Nikolai Lebedev's "Wolfhound," currently in post, with an $8 million-$10 million budget.
Central Partnership's two recent releases have scored mixed results, however: numbers are impressive for Alexei Sidorov's fight pic "Shadow Boxing," released on 320 screens, with $7.12 million on its first 18 days (strong TV promotion from pubcaster station Rossiya, Channel 1's main rival, certainly helped).
But box office is weaker for "The Escape" from Egor Konchalovsky (whose groundbreaking "Antikiller" pair of pics brought in handsome commercial results a few years ago): in its first four days, its gross was close to $1.05 million, and looks unlikely to go much above the $2 million final mark.
April 21's release of Filipp Yankovsky's "The State Counsellor," starring a heavyweight cast of Oscar-winner Nikita Mikhalkov, Oleg Menshikov ("Prisoner of the Mountains") and Konstantin Khabensky ("Night Watch") could be the next local blockbuster. It's produced by Mikhalkov's Tri-Te outfit, with participation of Channel 1.
A costumer based on another novel by scribe Boris Akunin, from whose work "Turkish Gambit" was adapted, it could score well, based on auds familiarity with Akunin's style and name.
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