👀 Holiday box office falls short of records
The 2026 May holidays failed to deliver the box office breakthrough that Russian cinemas had hoped for. According to the Cinema Fund's Unified Federal Automated Information System (UAIS), total revenues for the period from April 30 to May 11 amounted to just over 1 billion rubles (536.4 million rubles during the first wave of holidays and 530.6 million rubles during the second).
This represents a one-third decline compared to the same period last year, when the box office reached 1.5 billion rubles.
Audiences choose The Businessman
While the May repertoire was traditionally dominated by domestic releases, drawing audiences into theaters proved more challenging this year. Attendance plummeted by 35%, dropping from 3.7 million to 2.5 million viewers. Rising ticket prices failed to offset the slump; the average ticket cost during these holidays fluctuated between 486.8 and 491.8 rubles. Furthermore, average theater occupancy shrank from 14 people per screening in 2025 to just 10.
The absolute leader of the box office was the drama The Businessman (Kommersant), starring Alexander Petrov, which originally premiered on April 23. Over the holiday period, the film added 198.1 million rubles to its tally, demonstrating stronger legs than any of the new May releases.
Top 5 highest-grossing films of the May holidays:
- The Businessman (Russia) – 198.1 million rubles
- Angels of Ladoga (Russia) – 177.2 million rubles
- Seven Versts to Dawn (Russia) – 126.7 million rubles
- Now That’s a Drama! (USA) – 83.5 million rubles
- Hokum (Ireland/UAE/USA) – 30.2 million rubles
The Canadian project Semitone brought in a modest 25.8 million rubles. Meanwhile, mirroring last year’s strategy, cinemas completely halted alternative screenings of unauthorized content lacking official copyright holders from May 1 to May 10. Consequently, the “shadow” releases of major global hits—the biopic Michael and the sequel The Devil Wears Prada 2—were temporarily frozen.
Generic scripts vs. proven classics
The main disappointment of the holidays was the weak debut of major military-patriotic features (Angels of Ladoga, Seven Versts to Dawn, Litvyak), which failed to generate significant buzz.
Rifat Fazlyev, editor-in-chief of the industry publication Cinemaplex, notes that the issue lies not in a loss of interest in military themes, but in the source material itself. Last year, the film adaptation of Boris Vasilyev’s novel Not on the Passenger Lists grossed 183 million rubles during the second weekend of May alone. Producers surveyed by the publication corroborate this view: past successes relied on strong literary foundations, whereas all 2026 military releases were based on original screenplays that lacked an established, loyal readership base.
Long-term trend
The current situation vividly reflects the broader outcomes of the past year. In 2025, Russia’s total box office grew by 9.3%, reaching 50.7 billion rubles (up from 46.4 billion in 2024). However, the number of tickets sold actually decreased by nearly 7% to 118.6 million. Thus, the film industry continues to operate in an environment where overall revenues grow solely due to rising ticket prices, while the actual flow of moviegoers steadily narrows.
Source: Kommersant
