🎦 'Toy Story 5' Tops Russian Box Office Amid Surge in Shadow Screenings

According to data from the Unified Federal Automated Information System (EAIS) and verified reports from official distributors, the discrepancy between gross box office receipts and legal grosses stood at approximately 110 million rubles. Market analysts view this figure as a conservative estimate of unofficial theatrical revenue, representing a 17.23% increase compared to the previous weekend. The last time pirated releases captured the market lead was in mid-May of this year, driven by the massive debut of the comedy-drama The Devil Wears Prada 2 (which brought in roughly 206 million rubles at launch).

Among fully legal releases, the market dynamics shaped up as follows:

• Michael Eyes New Milestone. The biographical drama about the King of Pop dipped just 19% in revenue, moving to the number two spot. In its seventh weekend, the biopic pulled in an additional 91 million rubles, pushing its cumulative gross to 1.909 billion rubles. Within days, the musical hit is poised to eclipse the lifetime earnings of Now You See Me 3 (1.925 billion rubles).
• Son of a Rich 3 Approaches One Billion Mark. Klim Shipenko’s comedy maintained its number three position for the second consecutive week. The project added 64.7 million rubles to its tally, reaching a cumulative total of 953 million rubles and drawing over 2 million viewers. The film is well-positioned to become the first domestic release of the summer season to cross the 1-billion-ruble threshold.
• The week’s top official newcomer was the adventure feature The Dante Code from Nashe Kino, which generated 43.4 million rubles ($68,000 admissions) in its opening weekend. For the distributor, this marks the second-best debut for a foreign title since the spring of 2021, trailing only the animated release 100% Wolf (45.2 million rubles).

The film’s success is largely attributed to a special recut tailored specifically for Russian cinemas.

“The theatrical cut in Russia is indeed significantly different from the festival version that leaked online. The edit of our version is a tight, commercial arthouse film with a highly effective runtime. The opening weekend fully met our expectations,” commented Maxim Rogalsky, Managing Partner at Nashe Kino.

Horror titles continue to hold their ground. A24’s atmospheric liminal-space horror hit Backrooms retained a spot in the top five, pulling in 27 million rubles in its sixth weekend (bringing its cumulative total to 694 million rubles). Meanwhile, the romantic horror feature Obsession is demonstrating phenomenal legs: dropping a mere 7.6% in revenue, the film expanded its cumulative gross to 417 million rubles, surpassing the lifetime box office of the sleeper hit Longlegs (393 million rubles).

Domestic animation The Three Bogatyrs: Not a Day Without a Deed 3 is showing softer momentum; its cumulative box office reached 130 million rubles, trailing the performance of the summer franchise’s first two installments by approximately 25%. Closing out the top ten was the British horror film The Maw, generating 11.1 million rubles in its debut weekend.

In aggregate, the top 20 titles at the Russian box office generated 464 million rubles (548 million rubles including CIS countries). While this metric is 7.10% lower than the previous weekend, it stands an impressive 80% higher than the same weekend last year, which was similarly dominated by a shadow-market blockbuster, Jurassic World: Rebirth.