Heading into awards season, it’s always nice for any feature contender to have some juice at the box office, and Spain’s official Oscar entry has exactly that as La Bola Negra has easily become the country’s highest grossing local film year-to-date with $41 million per Rentrak. In total, La Bola Negra currently counts a running global cume of $43.4M.
In fact, La Bola Negra beat the year’s top Spanish title, Torrente Presidente ($31.6M) a few weekends ago.
La Bola Negra is a big win for young indie Spanish distributor Elastica which made Deadline’s annual Disrupters list back in 2022. According to Elastica and Rentrak, La Bola Negra has punched 5.5M admissions to date in Spain, which is the most tickets sold for any film YTD.
Watch on Deadline
Rentrak also reports that La Bola Negra cracked Spain’s all-time top 10 grossing list with a running cume of 36.7M Euros in the No. 10 spot. That list is led by Avatar with 77M Euros at No. 1. Currently, La Bola Negra is the third highest grossing local movie of all-time in Spain behind 2014 comedy Spanish Affair (56.2M Euros) and J.A. Bayona’s English language, 2012 Spanish production The Impossible (42.5M Euros).
For the calendar year in Spain, La Bola Negra ranks third behind Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day (40.4M Euros, $45.2M) and Universal’s The Odyssey (39.5M Euros, $44.2M).
The Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi directed, written and produced movie ranked No. 1 again in its 6th weekend at Spain’s box office with $1.4M ahead of Warner Bros/DC’s second weekend of Clayface ($402K, and a $1.4M cume) and the opening of South Korean sci-fi hit, Hope ($440K). La Bola Negra opened there on Sept. 25. The pic was released during the country’s Fiesta del Cine when all ticket prices were discounted to €3.50.
La Bola Negra follows the stories of three men throughout different eras, focusing on “three existences” that are connected through themes of sexuality, desire, pain, and inheritance. The pic won Best Director at Cannes for its directing duo who are nicknamed “Los Javis”. Netflix bought U.S. on the movie for a reported $5M. The streamer just began reporting theatrical grosses for its films in North America. La Bola Negra is a platform release and debuted at four NYC and L.A. theaters on Oct. 16 to $277,5K for an opening theater average of $69,3K the highest opening theater average ever for a Spanish-language movie stateside and the second-highest opening theater average for a non-English movie. Pic’s running cume in North America through three weekends at 38 locations is $1.2M.
La Bola Negra stars Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos Gonzalez, Milo Quifes, Lola Dueñas, Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close. In addition to its Cannes prize, the movie just notched a British Independent Film Award nomination for Best International Independent Film. La Bola Negra also received TIFF’s Oscar bellwether, the People’s Choice Award in addition to a Vanguard Tribute at the upcoming Gotham Film Awards in New York. Los Javis are also nominated for an audience award at the Gothams with Guitarricadelafuente up for nomination in the Breakthrough Performer category.
La Bola Negra hits France on Dec. 16. The pic was also released in Australia and New Zealand where it counts an estimated $300K.
Rentrak also reports that Spain is set to post its best year at the box office since 2019 with YTD B.O. pacing 40% ahead of 2025 and admissions +36%.