The magic of Three Wishes for Cinderella lingers on since its launch November 12 via Nordisk Film, as 454,855 Norwegians have bought a ticket to watch pop singer Astrid S play the fairy-tale heroine in the modern take of Václav Vorlícek’s 1973 cult movie.

Last weekend, the Norwegian film produced by Storm Films was still number 1, with an extra 45,946 ticket sales from 126 screens and a per screen admissions of 298, miles ahead of Disney’s new opener West Side Story by Steven Spielberg which attracted only 2,444 people or 23 per screen.

With nearly half a million ticket sales, Three Wishes for Cinderella is second only to the latest James Bond film No Time to Die (659,609 admissions), although as stated by Morten Christoffersen, MD at Nordisk Film Distribution Norway, B.O takings are far beyond pre-Covid time.

“Three Wishes for Cinderella is doing fine; the opening weekend was fantastic, but it has a totally different curve compared to other Christmas movies, falling much faster. This is of course because of Covid, and due to the fact that a big part of the audience stays at home. If it hadn’t been for Covid, I am sure that the numbers would have been record-breaking," he said.

With an Omicron surge in Norway, the Norwegian government has introduced new restrictions to try to curb Covid spread, including a maximum 50 people in an auditorium at any given time and whatever the size of the cinema, and every other seat occupation.

The government's measures had an immediate impact on cinema releases, as three major end of year movies were postponed to 2022, according to Film & Kino’s Jørgen Stensland: Nordisk Film’s local war drama Narvik by Erik Skjoldbjærg, UIP’s Sing 2 and SF Norge’s Spiderman-No Way Home.

Stensland says total admissions for 2021 initially estimated at more than 6 million, may have to be revised down to around 5.7 million. As of the end of October, Norwegian films posted 18% market-share.

Besides Three Wishes for Cinderella, other strong local performers include John Andreas Andersen’s disaster film The North Sea (214,012 admissions for Nordisk Film) and Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (208,465 for SF Norge), respectively 4th and 5th most successful films of 2021.