After one week in Norwegian cinemas, The Quake is shaking up some real business and on its way to become a success, just like its predecessor, The Wave. The opening weekend alone was the strongest in 2018 for any movie.
In its first weekend more than 155.000 Norwegian film fans went to see Oslo shaken by a fictional earthquake in John Andreas Andersen’s disaster movie. The film’s strong opening was the biggest of 2018, in fact it did better than many other Norwegian blockbusters such as The Wave, the animated Solan & Ludvig: Christmas in Pinchliffe and the WW2 drama Max Manus. Only Kon-Tiki did better when it in 2012 had 164.804 admissions in its first three days.
The Quake had all it needed to pull big crowds. Excellent reviews, viral hype that started at the opening of the Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund, stars like Kristoffer Joner and Ane Dahl Torp, a huge PR campaign and 334 cinemas showing it. In Oslo alone, Nordisk Film’s cinema chains had 76 screenings the first Friday and the competing chain Odeon 41 screenings.
Producer Martin Sundland said in a press release from one of the film’s financiers, Nordisk Film & TV Fund: -The technical developments in recent years have finally given us the possibility to make such [grand scale disaster] films in Norway as well. The film was met with brilliant feedback from critics, but it’s the audience we’re making movies for. It is obvious that the Norwegian people like great thrilling films like this, and we are glad that they are watching it in the cinema.
The €6 million film is being sold internationally by TrustNordisk. Sales are secured to Spain, German-speaking territories, Latin America and China as well as other countries. The film will also be shown at the upcoming London Film Festival.
Read more about the film in our preview article.
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