Like most places in the world, Russia’s silver screens are dominated by Hollywood’s global blockbusters. Russia’s film industry has struggled with the financial crisis, but is also capable of producing films that can occasionally compete locally with the American machine. Once a month, SRAS provides a lineup of the top five movies in Russia by box office take—with the official Russian-language trailers from YouTube and, for those Russian films on the list, links to our Russian film site.
Below are films listed with their English and Russian titles (note that they differ sometimes), as well as how much the film has earned over the calendar month.
1. Железный человек 3—Iron Man 3—$43.9m
Iron Man is the undisputed hero of Russian movie theaters this month, at least in terms of box office take.
2. Форсаж 6—Fast and Furious 6—$17.9m
The Russian title translates to “afterburn”—a method of suddenly boosting the power of a motor and thus pushing up the speed of the vehicle. It is a more technical phrase, but does capture the meaning of the original title (and in a manner that is perhaps more elegant than the original).
3. Легенда № 17—Legend #17 (Rus)—$12.8m (in May; total $29.3m)
4. Великий Гэтсби—The Great Gatsby—$11.3m
A direct translation has been used for this film—the same translation used or nearly all translations of the classic book into Russian (the first was produced in the USSR).
5. Стартрек: Возмездие—Star Trek: Into Darkness—$9.2m
Interestingly, although the previous Star Trek film was released under the translated name “Звёздный путь,” the latest film has chosen to use transliterate the English name (and spell it as one word): Стартрек. The subtitle has also been liberally rendered as “Возмездие” (Retribution), a relatively common subtitle for an action sequel.
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