The first international release of The Stolen Princess produced by Animagrad (FILM.UA Group), which started on March 16 in Romania, turned out to be successful and truly exemplary. During the first weekend, the Ukrainian cartoon collected 165,066$ of box office and ranked second after the American blockbuster Tomb Raider 2018 (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). It is worth noting that Gringo (Amazon Studios) with Charlize Theron playing the lead, which was also released on March 16, ranked only fourth during its first Romanian weekend.
It is interesting to compare The Stolen Princess with major animation releases of 2017-2018 from Disney Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, and Blue Sky Studios, which took place in Romania: the Ukrainian cartoon’s box office for the first weekend has exceeded those of Coco, Ferdinand, and The Boss Baby, only ceding to the third part of Cars franchise.
Just a reminder: on March 19 the box office of debut animated feature from Animagrad (FILM.UA Group) The Stolen Princess amounted to 29,801,235 UAH. Only after two weeks, the cartoon hit an absolute record of national release among the films produced in Ukraine: it was watched by 398,529 Ukrainians. The previous record belongs to Ukrainian military drama Cyborgs which in three months of distribution gathered a box office amounting to 23,023,807 UAH; this film was watched by 321,172 viewers.
The following country of The Stolen Princess international release will be Turkey: the Ukrainian animated film will be shown there starting from March 23. Starting from April 5, the cartoon will be released in Croatia; from April 6, in Bulgaria, and from April 12, in countries of the Middle East. In summer, the cartoon will be shown in Poland, Estonia, Israel, China, and Korea; very soon the distributing companies in Iran, the Czech Republic, and Latin America will announce the starting dates of release on these territories. In total, the cartoon has been pre-sold to over 50 territories, including France, Germany, countries of the Middle East, Southern Africa, and Asia.
FYI. The Stolen Princess is the first animated feature film for Ukrainian and international release in the production line of the Animagrad studio. The premiere of the film in Ukraine was March 7, 2018. The rights for its release have been pre-sold to more than 50 territories, including China, South Korea, France, Poland, Bulgaria, Germany, countries of the MENA region and Latin America. The Stolen Princess became the winner of the 9th competitive selection of Ukrainian State Film Agency; the sum of state financing amounts to about 20 percent of the film’s total budget of $5 000 000.
