There’s still day or so to go before the final figures, but the year-end grosses for the all the films released in cinemas during 2019 in Slovenia are more or less in. The top ten shows the continued dominance of Hollywood, comic books, cartoons, remakes, sequels and spin-offs, with just two original properties and one domestic title.
The year’s best performing movie at the box office was the CGI “live action” remake of The Lion King, with the top 10 showing some interesting variations with regard to the global list. Perhaps most notable is the fact that the world #1, Avengers: Endgame, is in third place in Slovenia, beaten by down to bronze by the darker and R-rated Joker (which landed at 7th on the global list, and – due to the low production and marketing costs – was the most profitable of all comic book movies for the year).
The full top ten, along with the trailers (either with Slovene subtitles, or dubbed for kids’ movies), is shown below. Note that, for comparison purposes, the top grossing movie in independent Slovenia seems to have been 2016’s Pr 'Hostar, a broad Slovenian comedy, which earned €1,088,441 in ticket sales. (Since Box Office Mojo gives the figures in US dollars we changed them to euros using today’s rate of $1 = €0.89.)
#1 The Lion King - €702,858
#2 Joker - €565,990
#3 Avengers: Endgame - €503,711
Other movies that were bigger hits in Slovenia than worldwide include How to Train Your Dragon: Hidden World (#5), The Secret Life of Pets 2 (#6), Košarkar naj bo 2 (Let Him be a Basketball Player 2) (#8, and the only Slovene picture in the top 30), Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (#9) and Abominable (#10). The latest Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, is #10 globally, but only #22 in Slovenia – well behind the 15th placed The Angry Birds Movie 2.
#4 Frozen 2 - €475,782
#5 How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World - €441,293
#6 The Secret Life of Pets 2 - €325,124
#7 Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw - €313,087
#8 Kosarkar Naj Bo 2 - €298,108
#9 Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood - €288,761
#10 Abominable € 271,059 $304,561
2019 in Slovenian film…
As noted above, other than Košarkar…, with ticket sales of €298,108 it wasn’t a great year at the box office for local productions. Preboj (Breakthrough), the story of the “young partisan resistance fighter commander Franc Sever Franta [who] faces an impossible task when he has to rescue 500 freedom fighters surrounded and outnumbered by a Nazi German division high in the mountains in harsh winter condition” – came in at #37, grossing around € 73,683, one place head of the failed blockbuster Terminator: Dark Fate. Meanwhile, the heavily promoted Ne Bom Vec Luzerka (My Last Year as a Loser) was the 78th most popular movie at the box office in Slovenia, taking at total of around €29,835, and the award-winning Zgodbe iz kostanjevih gozdov (Stories from the Chestnut Woods) was at #89, with €23,761. You can see the trailers for all these below:
