Ridley Scott’s historical epic Napoleon reigned over the French box office in its first week in theatres with 764,419 in ticket sales (€5.5m based on an average ticket price of €7.2) including previews, despite a slew of caustic reviews from French reviewers.
Released theatrically by Sony Pictures Entertainment in France on November 22 on 743 screens, Napoleon is on track to be France’s biggest November opener, ahead of Wild Bunch’s The Boy And The Heron (702,835), Metropolitan Filmexport’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes (613,191), Universal’s Five Nights At Freddys (493, 993) and Paramount’s f Killers Of The Flower Moon (418,000 ).
It is the 13th biggest opener of the year to date by admissions.
Due to France’s windowing laws, along with Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon, which has now garnered 1.24 admissions in total, it will be 17 months before the two Apple titles stream on Apple TV+ in the country.
Napoleon stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French emperor and charts his rise and fall alongside Vanessa Kirby as empress Joséphine de Beauharnais with Tahar Rahim in the role of politician Paul Barras.
Divided opinion
Despite a mostly positive critical reception in the US and UK and a strong global opening of $78.8m, French critics have mostly been unimpressed by the historical epic about their divisive former emperor.
Liberation newspaper titled its review “the crash of the Emperor” and described it as “crude and deliberately unworthy of its subject” that “offers no point of view on either the man or the myth.” Le Figaro called it “Barbie and Ken under the Empire” and Les Inrocks magazine described the film as “strange, generally anti-spectacular (apart from two impressive battle scenes) and a totally disillusioned examination of the emperor’s life.”
However, Napoleon is already faring better than Scott’s 2021 release House Of Gucci via Universal that sold 798,747 tickets during its 11-week run in theatres.
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