“A modern reading of a familiar plot is always interesting”: a book based on the film “Cheburashka” has been published

The book "Cheburashka", published by the AST publishing house, appeared on sale.

The plot is based on the script for the full-length film "Cheburashka", written by Vitaly Shlyappo together with Vasily Kutsenko, Anatoly Molchanov and Vyacheslav Zub.

In the book, as in the film, Cheburashka will literally fall from the sky into a seaside town, where he will meet the gardener Gena and other characters.

The work will allow not only to reread the story about a favorite character to children, but also to plunge into nostalgia for adults.

In addition, readers will learn more about the furry animal and its friends.

“Cheburashka is part of our cultural code, a character familiar to everyone, both a child and an adult.

Thanks to the film directed by Dyachenko, Cheburashka has become a new universal hero, not tied to a particular generation.

It is understandable and sympathetic to everyone without exception.

So he remained on the pages of the book on the film, ”TASS quotes Sergey Tishkov, director of the Planet of Childhood department of AST.

According to the forecasts of the publishing house, the total circulation of the book will be more than 15,000 copies.

In a commentary for RT, Tishkov noted that the success of the film at the box office clearly showed that the story of Cheburashka has the widest possible audience, primarily family.

For nostalgic adults, this is a wonderful occasion to meet their favorite hero again, and for modern children, it is a completely new story, close and understandable to them. 

“We have been working with release projects for many years and we immediately believed in the potential of the film.

Of course, first of all, the reader's request is directed to the "original" "Cheburashka", but a modern reading of a familiar plot is always interesting," Tishkov emphasized.

Meanwhile, the film about Cheburashka prompted viewers to pay attention to other books about the character.

According to RBC, sales of original works by Eduard Uspensky have grown significantly.

There is also a demand for themed toys.

And in the AST, meanwhile, they hope for the further development of the literary series about the new adventures of the big-eared hero. 

“Uspensky as the author of children's fiction, according to the results of 2022, became the best-selling one,” added Tishkov, “If we talk about the continuation of novelization, we hope that everything will turn out well, and this series will be developed not only on the movie screen, but also on the book shelf."

The adventure family film "Cheburashka" was released on January 1, 2023.

In the first days of the New Year holidays, the project earned more than 2 billion rubles at the box office, fully recouping its costs and adding to the list of the highest-grossing domestic films.

In two weeks of release, the tape with a mark of 3.5 billion rubles has already topped the rating of the highest-grossing films in the history of Russian distribution.

The success of the picture was not limited to this - to date, Cheburashka's fees exceed 5.7 billion rubles.

In connection with the wide audience interest in the tape and the large box office figures, the State Duma organized a screening of the film.

Deputies, representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Soyuzmultfilm discussed the furor that the picture made.

During the discussion, the general director of the Soyuzmultfilm film studio, Boris Mashkovtsev, listed the success factors of the film.

“The secret (of success. - 

) lies in the fact that the character of Cheburashka invariably arouses the love of the audience, not just curiosity ... The image continues to accompany us, including when we ourselves grow up,” Mashkovtsev said in an interview with RT.

- This (also. - 

) is a combination of factors, this is a form of work that is relevant for modern viewers, this is that the character should be filled with meaning, it should not be a dummy, it should not be an imitation, not our answer to someone, but an original character.

Director of the Department of Cinematography and Digital Development of the Ministry of Culture Dmitry Davidenko noted that the author of Cheburashka, Eduard Uspensky, would be proud of the triumph of his brainchild.

“Unfortunately, the writer did not live to see our days, but it seems to me that he would be just happy now, looking at how Cheburashka is conquering Russia,” Davidenko said.

As Tishkov noted, the emphasis in the book was on the literary component of the novelization, the quality of the text.

“I wanted to adapt the script as carefully as possible and at the same time place the accents so that when reading all the conflicts were understandable to children.

In a movie, everything is literally visual, but in a book you need to carefully explain what exactly each character feels and why he behaves in one way or another, ”he added.

The director of the film, Dmitry Dyachenko, previously announced that the film would receive a sequel.