Anton Megerdichev's historical epic The Heart of Parma, which was released on October 6, grossed more than 105 million rubles over the weekend and, with a total box office of 695 million rubles, became the highest-grossing Russian film, which was shown on big screens in 2022.

The tape has been holding the first line in domestic cinemas for five weeks now.

At the same time, the absolute leadership in terms of fees since the beginning of 2022 has been retained by the film The Last Hero: Messenger of Darkness (more than 2.2 billion rubles), however, its release took place on December 23, 2021, and the main income fell on the New Year holidays.

The March animation about the brownie “Finnik” closes the top three, having collected more than 440 million rubles at the box office.

However, according to the results of the rental, “Heart of Parma” most likely will not pay off, because for this, a film with a budget of 714 million rubles needs to score at least twice as much.

At the same time, for as long as Megerdichev's picture, only James Cameron's Avatar retained leadership in the top of the Russian box office.

After major Hollywood studios refused to release their new films in Russia, cinemas lost a large number of viewers.

It was expected that Megerdichev's film would be able to bring the audience back to the cinema halls.

“While preparing the project for release, we were well aware that Parma had a double responsibility.

"Heart of Parma" is the main hope of the industry this year, it is a picture that can become the locomotive of cinema viewing.

The marketing of the release was based on the principle of the largest domestic blockbusters, adjusted for the changing advertising landscape... We believe that The Heart of Parma will become a harbinger of future distribution success of domestic cinema,” Vadim Vereshchagin, CEO of Central Partnership, told Bulletin of the Film Distributor.

He also noted that the box office results from the first weekend of the film at the box office proved that "people are willing and willing to go to the cinema to see truly high-quality domestic films."

  • © Shot from the film "Heart of Parma" (2022)

On the first weekend, Heart of Parma showed the best start since the beginning of the year - about 140 million rubles.

Not a single film has demonstrated such dominance in Russian cinemas since last December - The Last Bogatyr then "took" more than 307 million at the start. Considering the schedule of premieres in 2022, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to surpass these results.

“Today, more than ever, our cinema needs success – not only because our Heart of Parma is a truly spectacular film made for the big screen.

Literally everyone needs a breakthrough - the audience, the industry, and cinemas, to which the audience is finally actively returning.

There is nothing to compare with the current distribution situation - we are at an unprecedented starting point, we are doing everything possible to support the film, and this point has already become the beginning of a new return of the viewer to Russian cinemas, as can be seen from the results of the first weekend, ”quotes producer Anton Zlatopolsky Film Distributor's Bulletin.

Despite the success at the box office, viewers' opinions about the picture were divided.

"Heart of Parma" practically divided the audience into two poles.

"Yeah, it's a great movie.

The fights are beautifully staged.

Looks expensive.

Our best historical film, ”said one YouTube user.

Another praises the game of the performers of key roles, the staging of battles, large-scale scenery.

He described the plot of the tape as "medieval feudal showdown interspersed with fantasy."

The “Heart of Parma” is scolded mainly for deviations from the book basis - not everyone liked the changes made to the plot of the novel by Alexei Ivanov.

“I don’t understand how Ivanov could scold the Tobol series for throwing out all the strong authorial plot moves from it, but accept The Heart of Parma, where they generally distorted the entire storyline, and concocted a tearful cool story for housewives from a complex tragic epic” , — the user of social networks is indignant.

Another author noted that important storylines were not properly disclosed in the film adaptation - the story would have looked more organically in the series format.

“Such a work cannot be put into 2.5 hours, well, in general, no way.

They threw out very important plot threads, cut the key characters (Volga, Yumshana) and focused on mysticism in the wrong place.

Removed or didn’t shoot all the scenes with the atrocities of the Muscovites (nevertheless, the “bad” pagans cut out hearts almost three times per film), poured an excess of slow-mo and battle scenes, made the most advanced type (Kalina) made Vanya the Fool ... Don’t do it again .

The director is mediocre, ”another blogger expressed dissatisfaction.

Meanwhile, a serialized version of "Heart of Parma" is also planned, which should expand the world and add storylines to the film adaptation.

According to Anton Megerdichev, a five-hour film was originally shot, from which a 2.5-hour feature film was later “glued together”.

Some episodes not included will be used in the script.

“The script for the film was written - first by Sergei Bodrov Sr., then by Ilya Tilkin.

I started working when there was already a version of Tilkin.

But the task was to make another series.

And we, based on the book, began to include some stories in this script that would grow into a series.

The result was an eight-episode script, where the ones for the movie were highlighted in yellow.

Then, during the installation, everything was mixed up several times.

Something from the series went into the film version, something came out of it with the words “well, we’ll probably take it into the series,” Megerdichev said in an interview with Vedomosti.

As of November 2022, the top 5 domestic films that have collected the largest box office at the box office are as follows: the fifth place is occupied by The Last Hero: The Root of Evil with a result of 2.05 billion rubles.

The final film of the trilogy, The Last Hero: Messenger of Darkness, earned more than 2.2 billion and was in fourth place.

On the third line is the historical blockbuster "T-34" by Alexei Sidorov with 2.27 billion rubles.

"Silver" - at the picture of the author of "The Heart of Parma" Anton Megerdichev "Upward Movement", which earned 2.9 billion. The first place was taken by "Kholop" by Klim Shipenko with the amount of 3.078 billion rubles.

"Heart of Parma" is still on the 42nd line of the rating.