The top and flop films of 2022 (excluding ‘Avatar 2: La via dell’acqua’, title that catches everything with the wind in its sails) – Il Fatto Quotidiano

Excluding Avatar 2: The Water Waya title that catches everything with the wind in its sails, but without breaking historical records, here is the top and flop among the films of 2022 in Italy.

Tom Cruise and Robert Pattinson compete with Marvel jam. Not that it’s a battle between David and Goliath, but in Italy’s beloved export colony the armies Paramount and Warner Bros they fought worthily with the rulers Walt Disney and their movie comics. The first big American surprise of 2022 has a name, or rather two, better three: Top Gun – Maverick. The sequel to the franchise that launched Tom Cruise in the middle of the eighties had its premiere in Cannes in May 2022 and on May 25, or a few weeks before the summer abyss in Italian cinemas, was released in theaters, becoming no less than the fourth most watched film of the yearor. Over thirteen million euros collected from the return to service of Pete Maverick Mitchell. A very pleasant and never banal film, an objective US surprise of the year, Top Gun has shown that even the summer market in Italy can offer surprises just as much as the winter one. On the heels, even if the million euros are just over ten (and sixth place in the 2022 standings) is The Batman with Robert Pattinson starring as (yet another) Batman on the big screen. Released in Italy in the middle of the SuperGrenPass period, with terror even of the neighbor who chews popcorn, the Warner Bros-branded film has asserted itself and gave the first injection of confidence to the exhibitors who came out of two years of lockdown and closed rooms. At the end of the day, coming out in full June too Elvis by Baz Luhrmann (18th place), an overwhelming biopic on the rock and roll icon distributed by Sony, has been able to carve out an abundant three million euros in Italy, raised only at the end of the season between summer arenas and semi-holiday multiplexes. More complex speech for Hollywood flops 2022. Marvel titles (Doctor Strange and Thor) confirm their dynamism at the box office (the first is third and the second is fifth), but a franchise like Black Panther, now in its sequel Wakanda Forever, in Italy it just doesn’t break through (eighth place in the middle of autumn with eight million and seven). It didn’t go great either Jurassic World: Dominion (eight million and ninth place overall), which unlike Elvis, released in the same period of the year, was driven by a very popular and transversal franchise. Maluccio also the pseudodystopian thriller by Don’t worry Darling with the hot film appearance of Harry Styles (36th place and not even two million euros). Almost unnoticed the presence in the theater of the hyped multiverse experience of Everything everywhere all at oncebut (ahinoi) dramatic the result of a priceless masterpiece like The Fabelmans by Steven Spielberg which will certainly still have two-three weeks of high exposure, but which with one million euros in receipts in fifteen days (of which 50% in the first weekend) sinks beyond 50th place with little chance of getting back on track.

The “oddly” strangeness at the top, Diabolik saga flops. There is little to go around it. The takings of Italian productions in 2022 are at historic lows, even if there are some small outposts of resistance to the abandonment of cinemas. The real top player of the year is called The strangeness. The film directed by Roberto went is placed just outside the general top ten (11th) with five million and seven hundred thousand euros in receipts, just below Uncharted and Jurassic World: Dominion. The explanations of this bizarre exploit – the graft between a country play followed by Pirandello and the ghost of Six characters in search of an author it’s so aesthetically bleak and intellectually bloated it’s scary – they’re different. The first and simplest is the presence of Ficarra&Picone protagonists of The strangeness almost more than Tony Servillo. The Sicilian comedy duo is a brand of laughter that has an excellent box office ratio. The second, certainly the more solid one, is that the film was distributed with a sort of federation of the two largest entities in the sector: Rai with 01 and Medusa which guaranteed the participation of ready-to-use theaters without a word. Then word of mouth must have done the rest, so much so that after more than two months, only 15% of the total collection comes from the first weekend: a sign that Andò’s film is being gradually edited like a soufflé. Good results for too The Hummingbird from the Arquebuses based on the novel Strega by Veronesi (twentieth with three million one hundred thousand euros), for Placido’s latest film, The Shadow by Caravaggio (32nd) and Dante by Avati (37th), even if they are almost three million receipts of the documentary of Giuseppe Tornatore, Enniusabout the immortal film composer Ennio Morriconethe real prolonged surprise of the difficult Covid moment (the film was released in February 2022) and of the genre (the documentary) which often, indeed almost always, does not attract crowds to the cinema.

We should keep quiet about flops because in Italy everyone is offended by interpreting modest figures as if they were world records. What is certain is that the public did not tear their hair out for Diabolik: Ginko on the attack, the sequel by Manetti Bros. taken from the famous comic book by the Giussani sisters. Just one million two hundred thousand euros for what was supposed to be a long and successful Italian franchise (01) to be exported around the world and released (we are talking about the first episode dated 2021) barely in Russia, while the second even stopped at the Brenner Pass. At our sole discretion Drought by Paolo Virzì is also a flop at the box office. One million eight hundred thousand euros for a filmmaker who with Crazy joy it had grossed over six million euros. Finally, we like to root for The eight mountainsthe film based on another Strega Prize-winning novel written by Paolo Cognetti, with Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi protagonists. In eight days in theaters the film directed by the Belgians Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, despite the almost three-hour duration, is sailing over one and a half million euros. Nothing prevents this film, which we particularly appreciate, from breaking through the two and a half/three million mark at the end of the race. Even if the final collection will intertwine with the 2023 vintage, it could be a good sign for that art house cinema that has been struggling to establish itself at the box office in Italy since well before the pandemic.