🎦 The Ninth Planet Tops the Russian Box Office

The domestic sci-fi feature The Ninth Planet claimed the top spot at the official box office.

The new release, starring Yura Borisov, earned 134 million rubles (256,000 admissions) in its opening weekend, placing 12th among the strongest debuts for domestic releases this year. In terms of opening weekend performance, the film settled between New Mother-in-Law (140 million rubles) and Lefty (128 million rubles).

The film’s producer, Tina Kandelaki, noted the challenges of working within the science fiction genre and stressed that the unconventional marketing drive surrounding the release is still underway: “I think a final tally in the range of 400–500 million rubles would be a major victory for this film. Obviously, the priority right now is to minimize the second-weekend drop… a strong opening weekend gives us every reason to be confident heading into the second.”

The biggest surprise of the official box office was the thriller Fall 2, distributed by Karo Premier. The sequel debuted with 94.3 million rubles (174,000 admissions), outperforming the 2022 original by 3.4 times in monetary terms. Aleksey Ryazantsev, president of the distribution company, attributed this success to a new location, a larger scale, and a deeper narrative depth that engaged a broader audience.

Other key players in the chart include:

• How Ivan Got into a Fairytale maintained strong positions in its second week with the smallest drop in the top 10 (-43.8%), adding 92.2 million rubles to its total (reaching 279 million rubles overall).
• The re-release of Twilight has already accumulated 307 million rubles thanks to phenomenal fan engagement, more than tripling the box office earnings of the original 2008 release.
• The Romanovs: Loyalty and Betrayal opened at No. 6, taking in 34 million rubles (69,000 admissions).
• The Last Warrior: Little Crusty Bread surpassed a major psychological milestone, bringing its total box office gross to 1.029 billion rubles (2.5 million admissions).

The discrepancy between the official EAIS (Unified Federal Automated Information System) data and verified distributor revenues came to approximately 114 million rubles, an amount industry experts attribute to unofficial screenings. The main driver of the grey market segment was Zach Cregger’s new adaptation of the Resident Evil video game franchise, which outpaced the opening figures of Scream 7 by 35.8%.