ABBA musical-movie Mamma Mia! has become the highest-earning movie ever shown in Icelandic cinemas with box office sales amounting to almost ISK 92.3 million (USD 1 million, EUR 681,000) yesterday, breaking Baltasar Kormákur’s Jar City’s (2006) record with ISK 90.6 million (USD 983,000, EUR 669,000).
According to Morgunbladid, Mamma Mia! has been shown for 11 weeks in Iceland and in that time more than 106,000 tickets have been sold. This represents roughly a third of Iceland’s entire population.
The highest-earning movie shown in Icelandic cinemas last weekend was however Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, starring Icelandic actress Aníta Briem, Brendan Fraser and Josh Hutcherson, which takes place at Snaefellsjökull glacier in west Iceland.
SMÁÍS, the Association of Film Right-Holders in Iceland, first began registering ticket sales in 1995. According to the producers of classic Icelandic comedy Med allt á hreinu (1982), that is the most popular film shown in Icelandic cinemas to date, with 125,000 people seeing it, half the nation at the time.
In other film-related news, two Icelandic television series premiered on Sunday, crime thriller Svartir englar (“Black Angels”) on RÚV, which has received mixed reviews, and Dagvaktin (“Day Watch”), a sequel to the popular Naeturvaktin, on Stöd 2, which critics were generally satisfied with.
Click here to read more about the popularity of films in Icelandic cinemas.
