🎫 'Michael' Maintains Its Grip on the Russian Box Office

Despite a natural 13.3% dip compared to the previous week, current figures are running 69.8% ahead of the same period in 2025. The market’s primary drivers remain major official releases alongside stable demand for alternative distribution.

The Absolute Leader and the Shadow Sector

The biopic Michael continues to cement its status as a major box office hit. For the sixth consecutive week, the film has brought in over 100 million rubles over the weekend. A minimal drop in revenue (just 15.2%) generated another 112 million rubles for the title, pushing its cumulative gross to 1.754 billion rubles (3.212 million admissions). Given this momentum, the biopic is well-positioned to surpass the crime thriller Now You See Me 3 (1.925 billion rubles) and become the most successful foreign project in official Russian distribution since March 2022.

Concurrently, an uptick has been recorded within unofficial screening schemes. The discrepancy between the UAIS (Unified Federal Automated Information System) data and confirmed distributor reports amounted to 94.1 million rubles—a sum generated by unofficial releases, led by the animated feature Toy Story 5. Revenues in this segment grew by 4.31% over the week.

Comedies Shift Positions

Klim Shipenko’s Serf 3 holds onto the number three spot on the charts. Shedding 26% in its fourth weekend, the comedy added 80,7 million rubles to its tally. The project’s cumulative box office has reached 849 million rubles. The film is guaranteed to overtake last year’s hit Grandpa’s Village (854 million rubles) to officially become the highest-grossing domestic summer release in the history of modern Russian box office.

Entering the charts in sixth place was another family-oriented newcomer from NMG Kinoprokat—Grandpa Fomich. The film debuted with 27.3 million rubles (64,000 tickets sold), delivering a solid opening on par with genre counterparts like Meet the Parents and Mom’s 17 Again.

Meanwhile, the influencer-led comedy Unboxing, starring Vlad Kobyakov, dropped 45% in its second week, pulling in 18.3 million rubles (bringing its total to 69.3 million rubles). On the other hand, the animated debut Daddy, Buy Me a Pup, which featured influencers for voiceover roles, had a respectable showing, grossing 16.5 million rubles and outperforming Cinderella: The Secret of the Three Wishes.

Horrors Dominate the Top Ranks While Animation Slumps

The horror genre continues to yield consistently high margins for distributors.

• Kane Parsons’ The Backrooms of Reality grossed 33.5 million rubles in its fifth week, with interest bolstered by the release of an extended director’s cut. With a cumulative gross of 649 million rubles, the film has firmly secured second place among horror films in official distribution since 2022 (Luc Besson’s Dracula remains the leader with 937 million rubles).
• Curry Barker’s Obsession showed enviable stamina in its seventh week, losing a mere 3.4% to take 25.8 million rubles for the weekend, bringing its total to 379 million rubles. The film has now drawn nearly level with Longlegs (393 million rubles).
• The sci-fi horror Flight 298 rounded out the top 10, debuting at 13.7 million rubles.

Conversely, Melnitsa Studio’s animation sector is flashing warning signs. The franchise title Three Bogatyrs: No Day Without a Feat 3 dropped 40.6% in its second weekend, pulling in 28 million rubles (for a total of 94.6 million rubles). The threequel is lagging significantly behind the pace of its predecessors: by this point, the 2024 project had amassed 126 million rubles, while the 2025 release stood at 135 million rubles.