Lars Von Trier's Manderlay launched on its hometurf over the weekend, registering a disappointing 3,686 admissions in Danishcinemas. It was the first territory to launch the Cannes competition film.

The sequel to Dogville was released on 26screens, which is considered a broad release in Denmark. By comparison, SinCity launched on 32 screens over the same weekend, attracting 23,769admissions.

Back in 2003, Dogville pulled in a total of109,116 Danes into theatres. It was an impressive achievement given that VonTrier is not a mainstream director - despite being a household name in Denmark- and the film was in the English language.

Given its lacklustre opening, Manderlay isexpected to gross around half the box office of Dogville.

The poor figures are surprising given that Manderlayhas enjoyed huge buzz since the Cannes film festival. Nearly every majornewspaper in Denmark rewarded Manderlay with five stars out of six.

In the run-up to the film's launch, Von Trier fuelledan alternative marketing campaign for the film by accusing Denmark's two mainscript writers, Anders Thomas Jensen and Kim Fupz Aakeson, of being tooprolific and not writing from the heart. Von Trier's attack got a lot of pressbut was stopped by Zentropa co-owner Peter Aalbæk Jensen, who regularly backsthe works of the writers at Zentropa.