The beginning of June in Lithuania marked the start of filming for the first international adaptation of Crazy Wedding, a record-breaking Ukrainian comedy. In the local version, the film received a title The Wedding: Groom Import (Vestuvės: Importinis jaunikis). Its release is planned for early 2020.
The idea, casting and plot of the Lithuanian comedy fully replicate the original format of Crazy Wedding. Just a reminder: the rights to produce a local adapted version of Crazy Wedding Ukrainian comedy in Lithuania, with an option to produce Latvian and Estonian versions of the film, were acquired by ACME Film, the biggest film distributor in the Baltic region. The film’s producer is Zilvinas Naujokas, ACME Film founder. “When I first found out about Ukrainian Wedding movie, I loved the concept so much. We found it very funny and the subject is as relevant in Lithuanian as it is in Ukraine, so I’m sure, having an updated script and local Lithuanian cast will make another great comedy. Also, all of our Lithuanian team is very glad to cooperate with Ukraine on the film project”, commented Zilvinas Naujokas.
The director of the Lithuanian Crazy Wedding is Simonas Aškelavičius whose works in comedy genre are well-known. The role of “crazy” father has been given to a popular Lithuanian actor Mindaugas Capas. The “imported” groom will be played by Felipe Gabriel, a Brazilian football player for whom the film role will be a debut: “This is a great start! Everything is very interesting, I am looking forward to the future scenes, I have even learned Lithuanian!” A young Lithuanian actress Gabrielė Martirosianaitė was cast to play the bride.
Lithuanian comedy The Wedding: Groom Import will become the first adaptation of Ukrainian feature format abroad. “Crazy Wedding comedy has confirmed its record-breaking status once more, the first in all respects. The film has set records in theatrical distribution and on TV, become the first Ukrainian film the box office of which completely covered production expenses, delivered profits and paid back to the state with interest. Now this is the first Ukrainian film with a format exported abroad,” says Irina Kostyuk, film producer.
Just a reminder: after the Baltic countries, the rights to Crazy Wedding concept were acquired by Romania. Negotiations with other countries are in the making; some have reached the agreement-signing stage. Now the film is presented in FILM.UA Distribution catalogue; this company is a distributor of FILM.UA Group projects.
Crazy Wedding authors are already working on Crazy Wedding 2. The audience will see favorite characters and new trials for Vasyl Seredyuk. The team keeps the details of the plot in secret, and the release of the film’s sequel is planned for December 25, 2019. Just like the first film, Crazy Wedding 2 will be produced by Prototyp Production and FILM.UA Group, with MOZGI Entertainment as co-producer. MMD and FILM.UA Distribution will distribute the film on the territory of Ukraine.
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#BestComedyoftheYear was widely released in Ukraine on October 4 and as of 2018 established two national records: the biggest box office among all Ukrainian films and a record number of viewers for a Ukrainian-produced film. The movie’s box office has amounted to almost 55 million UAH; it was viewed in cinemas by over 657 thousand spectators. Besides, the comedy beat the record of the last decade and became the highest-ranked film on television since 2009 by all main audiences. On January 1, Crazy Wedding was watched on 1+1 TV channel by 4,279,876 spectators. In total, the film was watched by about 9 million viewers on different platforms.
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