Lars von Trier's Cannes winning film Melancholia received rave reviews from French critics ahead of its theatrical release on August 10, via Les Films du Losange. and it had a better opening in France than most of von Trier's previous films with over 17,000 tickets sold. The best theatrical results in France for the Danish auteur was Dancer in the Dark (1.1 million admissions), followed by Breaking the Waves (630,000 admissions) according to French publication Courrier International which predicts that total admissions for Melancholia should be between 400,000-500,000.
The Zentropa production supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond is also playing strongly in Eastern European territories such as Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. The next major territories to open are the Netherland on August 25 and the UK on September 30.