A ROYAL AFFAIR REIGNS SUPREME ON OPENING WEEKEND

By Jorn Rossing Jensen // SCREENDAILY

10-04-2012

Danish director Nikolaj Arce´s A ROYAL AFFAIR

has had one of the strongest weekend openings ever for a local film,

securing 91,578 admissions (including previews) from 101 Danish screens.

 

Jan Lehman, managing director of the film´s distributior

Nordisk Film Biografdistribution, revealed that after monday, admissions

were up to 110,315. ”It was a crowded affair, even compared to Danish director Susanne Bier´s Oscar-winning IN A BETTER WORLD which reached 450,000 in total and last years top-grossing A FUNNY MAN (DIRCH), by Martin P Zandvliet (484,000). It beat Arce´s own KING'S GAME,” Lehmann added.

 

The

18th century love affair between German doctor Johann Friedrich

Struensee (played by Mads Mikkelsen), the physician-in-ordinary to

Denmark´s schizofrenic King Christian VII (Mikkel Bo Følsgaard), and

Queen Caroline Mathilda (Alicia Vikander), an English princess who was

married to him at 15, was launched at the recent Berlinale, where it won

two Silver Bears. The film was produced by Louise Vesth, Meta Foldager

and Sisse Graum Jørgensen for Zentropa Entertainments.

 

Before the

Danish premiere Denmark´s TrustNordisk had sold the film to 76

territories, mainly from a promo reel screened at last year´s Cannes.

”It will certainly become one of the greatest successes in Danish

cinema,” declared Zentropa chief Peter Aalbæk Jensen.

 

The company

has so far backed the five internationally best-performing Danish films

ever, according to the European Audiovisual Observatory: Lars von

Trier´s DANCER IN THE DARK (4.4 million admissions), von Trier´s BREAKING THE WAVES (3.9 million), Lone Scherfig´s ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS (3 million), von Trier´s DOGVILLE (2.5 million) and Thomas Vinterberg´s THE CELEBRATION (2.5 million).