(BFM Bourse) – “Dogman”, the latest film from the director of Le Grand Bleu, is off to a sluggish start for its first week of release. The EuropaCorp stock is taking a hit on the Paris Stock Exchange.
Luc Besson’s big return behind the camera promises to be more complicated than expected. “Dogman”, the new film from the director of the Big Blue, attracted only 140,000 spectators in French cinemas for its first week of operation, according to figures from CBO Box office.
This is the worst start for a film directed by Luc Besson, reports French media Ecran Large. “Dogman” struggles to compete with the 2 million entries for Lucy the week of its launch in 2014, or with the 1.8 million tickets sold to discover the Fifth Element, released in 1997.
Since the failure in 2017 of its big-budget film “Valérian and the City of a Thousand Planets”, the production and distribution studio for films and series has suffered a series of disappointments in recent years, until it found itself in serious financial difficulty. . The bitter failure of the film “Anna”, filmed in 2017 but released in theaters two long years later, precipitated the fall of Europacorp, until the group returned to the fold of the American Vine in March 2020.
On the Paris Stock Exchange, EuropaCorp lost 3.5% around 10:50 a.m., bringing its decline since Wednesday to 29%, and the sluggish start of “Dogman” in theaters. The title of the film production and distribution company therefore completely erases its 25% advance gained over the three stock market sessions which preceded the theatrical release of Dogman on September 27.
A film well received by French spectators
However, spectator feedback on Luc Besson’s latest opus is rather good, with a rating of 4/5 on the Allociné site. Of the 1,221 ratings posted to date on the site dedicated to cinemas, 154 people gave a rating of 5/5, 115 of 4/5 and only 12 critics gave a zero point to this film which tells the story of ‘a young man, bruised by life, and who finds his salvation thanks to the love of his dogs.
The performance of Caleb Landry Jones – the main actor playing Doug – was unanimously praised by Allociné spectators but also by journalists, reported the specialized site Cine Série.
Well before the French theatrical release, the Anglo-Saxon press had for its part issued rather scathing criticisms of Luc Besson’s latest film, as noted by the French media Ecran Large. Selected extracts…
“Even those who didn’t like Joker will be able to admit that he didn’t treat his audience as if they were so brain dead that they left with 30 more stupidity IQ points than before they arrived. “, notes Ecran Large quoting the Hollywood magazine Variety.
The international public will perhaps be more receptive to Luc Besson’s “return to dark cinema, in the tradition of Subway, Nikita or Léon”, as BFMTV indicated. The worldwide release of Dogman is scheduled for the fourth quarter, according to the schedule communicated in EuropaCorp’s latest annual report.
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2023 BFM Bourse
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