'Gambit' Pays Off at Russian Box Office
Tue 12 Apr, 2005

A period drama about an obscure 19th-century Balkans war has broken all records at the Russian box office, taking in nearly $19 million within its first six weeks of release, its producers said Thursday.
"Turkish Gambit," a rollicking costume drama set during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, stars some of Russia's top actors and was produced by state television channel Channel One.

The movie has overtaken the previous record of $16 million, chalked up by fantasy thriller "Night Watch"last year, to set a new benchmark for the booming local film industry here.
The film, based on a popular novel by Boris Akunin and released with 367 prints, has been playing to packed theaters since its mid-February release.

Its success appears to bear out predictions made earlier this year by Konstantin Ernst, head of "Turkish Gambit" producer Channel One. He said that ingredients in the promotion and production of the station's hit "Night Watch" -- blanket advertising, strong television support, state-of-the-art cinematography and a strong Russian theme -- could be applied to other projects.

"Turkish Gambit," which stars leading local names such as Gosha Kutsenko and international talent such as Polish actor Daniel Olbrychski, proves that Russian audiences now embrace local films, according to Anatoly Maksimov, another of the film's producers.

"People now trust the brand of Russian cinema and we are proud to have been a part of producing that trust," Channel One deputy general director Maksimov said in an interview.

Total box office stands at about at $18.8 million, and the film -- still being shown on 150 copies -- is now reaching the limits of its distribution potential in Russia, where cinemas prefer new releases, Maksimov said.

"I'm not sure I can predict $20 million for it at the Russian box office because it is now only showing at cinemas once or twice a day, but its DVD release has already notched up 1.3 million orders within a week," he added.

The success of "Turkish Gambit" is not isolated.

Central Partnership, one of Moscow's new breed of producer-distributors, announced Thursday that boxing drama "Boi S'tenu" (Shadow Boxing) had taken in $7.1 million on 320 copiessince it was released 18 days ago, and its remake of "The Fugitive" "Pobeg," released on March 31 on 270 copies, grossed more than $1 million in its first four days.

"The new Russian films may not be to everyone's tastes, and word-of-mouth reactions still count for a lot here, but audiences are packing cinemas for the new Russian releases because they strike a chord with their own lives," Alexander Semenov, publisher of weekly trade paper Russian Cinema Business Today, said in an interview.