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).