Camera, engine! What does Cheburashka’s success mean for Russian cinema and what awaits us at the box office in 2023?

When last year’s sanction spring hit the theaters, conversations about our reactions to Hollywood became more frequent and louder than ever. “The domestic industry will show what it really costs,” said critics. And he showed the comedy “I want to get married” with Christina Asmus and the sports drama “Mr. sometimes screamed for help”. In March, for example, the Theater Owners Association wrote a public statement about losing up to 80% of revenue and the threat of death for the industry as a whole. But time passed, the storm subsided, and the cinemas (fortunately) did not close. By the end of the year, 277 (11.5%) of 2,136 cinemas in Russia as a whole have suspended their activities – at least this was stated in 2019 by the head of the Cinematography Department of the Ministry of Culture, Dmitry Davidenko. drop. And already in winter, a miracle happened at the Russian box office in the form of Cheburashka, which in a few weeks collected more than five billion rubles and surpassed even the first Avatar with a figure of 3.5 billion (James Cameron’s long-running film) time, the highest-grossing Russian box office continued to be published).

It’s unclear whether domestic film companies will throw a similar lifeline to the industry in the coming months, but the “New Year’s war” in Russia was marked by a clear victory, bringing rentals to pre-pandemic levels.

In fact, “Cheburashka” has become another (and by numbers – almost irrefutable) proof that Russian cinema now relies heavily on family content. For example, last year’s Finnick cartoon earned 443 million rubles and became the highest grossing in the last 10 years, and five more animation projects managed to break the 100 million mark (last year only Three Heroes and Horse on the Throne showed such a result, and “Koschei. The Beginning”) . The case of The Last Hero, which has been on the big screens since 2017 and earned nearly 2 billion rubles for each episode, also confirms that movies and cartoons made in Russia can do more than impressive at the box office in stories of eternal and good. Meanwhile, Boris Mashkovtsev, general manager of Soyuzmultfilm, said in an interview in the spring: “A system has developed in our country in the last 20 years, in which the main income of animation producers is only preschool audiences. Why is that? Why? It is the most profitable. And by the way, at the premiere in Kinopoisk, the cartoon The Snow Queen: Defrost even surpasses the candid drama Naughty with Alexander Petrov (82%) in the expectation rating (88%).

“Such a large number of full-length children’s productions of Russian production can be called records. It is important to emphasize that this segment is mainly represented by medium-budget films – the cost of their production does not exceed 150 million rubles, ”Alexander Nechaev, editor-in-chief of Film Distributor Bulletin, told RBC. . However, the abundance of family cinema has managed to fill the audience with mouthfuls in a year, and in the next 2023 “what to go to?” He states that they will ask the question. will be more selective: “We’re going to have to raise the standards instead of waiting for the audience to be cut off completely from Hollywood productions in theaters.” By the way, about the latter: according to Peer Trace (the distributor of data on downloads), Russians download foreign films hundreds of thousands of times daily, which never reach the authorities or do not rent a lot. And in 2022, views of pirated content more than doubled from last year.

But if it came in the statistics of pirate sites, then on the contrary, at the end of the year, the cut in movie fees, and the industry has unfortunately shown the worst result in the last four years. In the anti-rating, it even surpasses the pandemic year: 21.77 against 22.75 billion rubles. Such figures were last shown in 2009, and this accounts for the premiere of the first Avatar.

However, despite the successful march of “Cheburashka” in Russian cinemas, the market prospects for the next 11 months remain unclear, although directors and film companies that openly started last year are ready to circulate the audience. Among the important publications of domestic production are “Free Relations” with Aglaya Tarasova, the previously mentioned “Naughty” with Alexander Petrov, “Nuremberg” with Lyubov Aksenova, “Unprincipled in the Village” with an enviable cast, “Yulia Peresild (the same as shot in space) and even the second “Challenge with Kholop”, the first part of which has held the palm in the list of the highest-grossing Russian films for several years. True, with the exception of the last one, no project so far has taken advantage of the numbers that could save the box office. No sports dramas like “Move Up”, no military stories like “T-34” or “Stalingrad”, not even a next episode of “The Last Hero” – anything that is very actively bought tickets at one time, according to the top, is the highest-grossing from Russian paintings.

But it would still be arrogant to put an end to the industry – especially in an age when the broadcast schedule changes as quickly as the weather in Moscow. “Cheburashka” for the industry took a breather, but for normal operation and more, it needs a constant flow of air. What will they be – outspoken dramas, sci-fi or comedies that Russians love? We’re already in line for popcorn.