Russian Cinema Sees a Busy Week of New Releases, “Birth of an Empire” Leads Screenings

Dragon Media News Desk

The Russian film market opened November with a varied lineup of historical dramas, family fantasies and foreign films. Releases on November 4 and 5 included Aitmatov, the Russian family fantasy The Living Book, the Chinese film Big Race: Pegasus III and several other titles. Wicker, Tuner, Nawar and Rolling Loud also joined the schedule, while The Twilight Saga: Eclipse returned to theaters.

On November 6, listings showed 60 films scheduled across 111 cinemas in 52 cities, with 3,758 screenings. Birth of an Empire had the most screenings among the films tracked. The Living Book and Battle of Motors were also among the titles with the largest number of showings. The figures cover the cinemas included in that listing.

In the latest completed weekend, which ended on November 1, Birth of an Empire topped the Russian box office, earning about 236.6 million rubles. The family fantasy Chudo-Yudo placed second with 144.7 million rubles, followed by The Tale of Lost Time with 131.3 million rubles. Battle of Motors earned about 124.5 million rubles in its fourth weekend.

The Russian and CIS market’s total weekend box-office revenue from October 29 to November 1 reached 959.88 million rubles, according to industry figures—29 percent more than the previous weekend. School holidays helped family films gain audiences and revenue, although the new family releases performed below the comparable group of films released during the same period last year.

The November 6–8 weekend was still underway when this report was prepared, so final box-office figures were not yet available. The release schedule and recent results show Russian historical and family films competing for audiences alongside foreign releases and re-releases.