Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘Parthenope’ Is Scoring Stellar Results at Italy’s Box Office, Becoming Country’s Top Local Specialty Film of the Year

variety.com:

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” is doing gangbuster business at the Italian box office, where the director’s lavish love letter to his native Naples has surpassed the €5 million ($5.3 million) mark less than two weeks after going on full release.

These numbers have made it the country’s top local draw – excluding commercial comedies – of the year to date. For its first theatrical outing since bowing at Cannes in May, new Italian distributor PiperFilm came up with a smart release strategy for “Parthenope” that involved marketing the film to youth audiences. “Parthenope” was teased with some midnight premieres in select Italian cinemas – between Sept.

19 and 25 – to stoke excitement prior to its full launch on Oct. 24. On Wednesday, “Parthenope” reached $5.5 million in cumulative grosses from roughly 500 Italian screens, according to national box office compiler Cinetel.

The film, which is Sorrentino’s 10th feature, could now become his personal best in terms of local returns. Sorrentino’s 2013 Oscar-winning hit “The Great Beauty” had pulled $4.5 million during the same amount of time it took “Parthenope” to reach $5.3 million. “Great Beauty” then went on to score more than $9.7 million in total, including intake from its rerelease following the film’s best international feature win.