The cinema release of “The Doll,” directed by Maciej Kawalski, has reached 2 million viewers, the distributor Kino Świat announced on Wednesday, 21 October. The film hit cinemas on 30 September and is the most-watched Polish film of this year.
The Kino Świat statement, published on its press website, refers to two million viewers within three weeks of the premiere. The distributor calls it a “celebration of Polish cinema.” The figures come from the distributor, not from an independent tally.
How attendance grew
Five days after the premiere, 622 thousand people had gone to cinemas, according to the portal Wirtualnemedia. The distributor announced the one-million mark on 9 October. After the second weekend, Kino Świat gave the daily newspaper “Rzeczpospolita” a figure of 1.41 million viewers. That paper also reported that preliminary estimates pointed to a final attendance of around 3 million people. This is a forecast, not data.
Place in the rankings
According to Filmweb, “The Doll” is the best-selling Polish film of the year and the only Polish production with at least 2 million tickets sold. Filmweb notes that it is not yet the highest-grossing release of the year in Polish cinemas, as foreign films still rank ahead of it.
As TVN24 reports, citing a statement from the producer, the film has led the Polish box office for three weeks in a row. It is among the three most-watched Polish films since the start of the pandemic. Among domestic titles since 1989, it ranks 17th. According to Wirtualne Media, the result placed “The Doll” in the top forty of all films with the largest cinema audiences in Poland since 1989.
Film, producer and distribution
The adaptation of Bolesław Prus’s novel was directed by Maciej Kawalski. Marcin Dorociński plays Stanisław Wokulski, Kamila Urzędowska plays Izabela Łęcka, and Marek Kondrat plays Ignacy Rzecki. The producer is Radosław Drabik of Gigant Films. The co-producers are TVN, the Wytwórnia Filmów Fabularnych in Wrocław and S2 Holding.
TVN24 writes that the film entered cinemas as part of the largest distribution campaign in Poland since 1989. The producer wanted it to reach every cinema in the country. Filmweb counted “The Doll” among the most expensive Polish productions, and wrote about its budget in a separate article.
The film should not be confused with the Netflix series “Lalka.” That series, as “Rzeczpospolita” reported, had 2.5 million viewers in its first week and 2.4 million in its second. These are streaming-platform figures, so they cannot be compared with cinema tickets.
What it means for viewers
Producer Radosław Drabik says the film “will not appear on any platform in the coming months.” According to him, “it should be experienced for the first time only in the cinema.” Anyone who wants to see “The Doll” on the big screen should expect to watch it in a cinema, not expect a streaming premiere any time soon. No specific date for an online release has been given.
The next weekend box office report will show whether the film keeps its lead in the Polish box office and how quickly it approaches 3 million viewers.
Komentarze