In its fourth week on screens, The Unknown Soldier has sold more than 625,000 tickets.

Aku Louhimies’s WW2 drama released by SF Studios is by far the highest grossing film of 2017 in Finland and biggest local hit in more than 25 years.

The Finnish war drama’s conquest of the national box office looks unstoppable. The 625,000 tickets sold so far are almost double the tally of Despicable Me 3 (332,742), number 2 at the Finnish B.O-and still enjoys a healthy 404 admissions per screen average.

According to Reetta Hautamäki, the Finnish Film Foundation’s Information Officer, Louhimies’ modern take on Väinö Linna’s iconic novel is now number 14 on the domestic films’ all-time list, just after another war movie, Pekka Parikka’s 1989 film The Winter War (628,276 admissions). 

Timo Räisänen, Head of Theatrical Distribution, Finland told nordicfilmandtvnews.com: “The Unknown Soldier’s run has become a legendary success story. The film is generating sold-out shows weekend after weekend. The revised target has been set to one million admissions which has not happened in Finland since January 16, 1998 when Titanic opened in Finland." He continues: “SF Studios is very proud of the success of The Unknown Soldier, whose outstanding run is engrossing the whole film industry to break new records. Finland's end of year admission figure is slowly climbing towards 9 million, which would be a record-breaking achievement, the best since the early 80´s."

Tagged as one of Finland’s most expensive films ever with a €7m budget, The Unknown Soldier was produced by Louhimies, Mikko Tenhunen and Miia Haavisto, with support among others by Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

The film opens in Sweden on December 6 on more than 130 screens. Antti Toiviainen, SF Studios’ Chief Sales & Distribution Office said: “We are really excited about the film’s upcoming release in Sweden, as it has the potential to become the biggest Finnish film ever in Sweden. Moreover, we are planning to release the film in both Norway and Denmark in the early 2018, which is also a great way of celebrating Finland’s 100 years of independence, together with our Nordic partners.”

Beta Cinema handles world sales.