The Black Ball Continues to Make History as the Eighth Highest-Grossing Film of All Time

Third week on the Spanish box office and ‘La bola negra’ continues making history. The film by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi returned to lead the chart last weekend, when it fell only 18% compared to the previous week, confirming the strong staying power the movie is showing in its early days in cinemas.

The movie, which is about to reach the United States, grossed this third week 4.958.741 euros, elevating its total in our country to 23.559.741 euros. Thus, with data up to last Sunday, ‘La bola negra’ is already the eighth-highest grossing Spanish film in history, a milestone for a film of this kind.

Moreover, it won’t have much difficulty climbing in this ranking, since the positions four to seven of that top are within less than 5 million euros of distance. More challenging will be the top 3, currently led by ‘Ocho apellidos vascos’ (56.1 million), ‘Lo imposible’ (44.2 million) and ‘Ocho apellidos catalanes’ (36.1 million).

The ranking of the highest-grossing films does not account for inflation. Another metric is the number of spectators. Here ‘La bola negra’ accumulates 3.345.000 espectadores hasta ahora and still has not entered the top 15. ‘Ocho apellidos vascos’, which is also the most-watched in history, reached 9.397.647 espectadores. There you have it.

‘La otra madre’ debuta aceptable

Of the 9.5 million euros that the box office took in this past weekend, more than half belong to ‘La bola negra’, so the rest of the films had to share the leftovers. The second position is, with 4 million difference, for ‘La otra madre’. The film that led the weekend in the United States wins but does not convince: poor reviews for Jessica Chastain’s latest translate into 964.696 euros in the Spanish box office. These figures salvage the outing but little more.

The rest of the top 5 is completed with familiar titles from other weeks, highlighting the solid long-term performance of En el corazón de la bestia. The Brad Pitt film barely drops 19% in its third week, grossing 859.149 euros in the weekend for a total of 4.537.568 euros. The film, which did not have a particularly promising start in its debut week, has been redeeming itself gradually, and internationally it has already reached 133.9 million dollars.

Fourth place goes to ‘Resident Evil’ in its fourth week. The film had already confirmed its strong performance and, in the absence of powerful new releases, holds up well in the ranking, although it now only adds 487.424 euros to its total of 6.32 million euros grossed.

In fifth position, ‘Verity. La sombra de un engaño’ loses 41% in its second week, earning 433.902 euros, and a total of 1.46 million euros. Not great numbers, but it nearly doubles the premiere of ‘El precio de la red’, so the Anne Hathaway film can be considered satisfied.

‘El precio de la red’ también fracasa en España

Pocas excusas puede poner ‘El precio de la red’ para justificar su fracaso en nuestro país. La película de Aaron Sorkin, secuela de ‘La red social’, se estrella en su debut en sexta posición con únicamente 232.578 euros, unos datos ridículos para una película de la que se esperaba algo más.

El resto del top 10 lo componen viejos conocidos, en este orden ‘La isla olvidada’, ‘Tadeo Jones y la lámpara maravillosa’, ‘Coyote contra Acme’ y ‘Digger’, todas ellas con recaudaciones modestas. Especialmente destacable es el batacazo de ‘Digger’, que en su segunda semana está a punto de abandonar el top 10. La película de Tom Cruise logra únicamente 153.133 euros en nuestro país, donde su total asciende a los 653.884 euros.