There is a beautiful melody wafting over German-speaking lands, and it comes from the beautiful voices in Sing 2. The animation sequel has dominated the box office in both Germany and Austria. In its second weekend, it lured half a million musical fans to the theaters in Germany with a cumulative €4.5 million in sales. In Austria, a much smaller country, Sing   2 has held steady in the number one position with €261,000 as it edges close to a seven-figure total.

Its popularity is notable since the internationally famous voices that are heard in the original version – we are talking about Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Edgerton, Bobby Cannavale, Letitia Wright, Jennifer Saunders, and music heavyweights Tori Kelly, Bono, Pharrell Williams, Eric André, Nick Kroll, and Halsey – are replaced here by local names like Bastian Pastewka, Alexandra Maria Lara, Katharina Thalbach, Stefanie Kloß, Wotan Wilke Möhring, Luca Hänni, Julia Beautx and Peter Maffay. As is so often the case with animated films, it is clearly not name recognition alone that brings in the audiences. Garth Jennings’ lovely little story about Buster Moon and his friends who are on a mission to persuade a reclusive rock star named Clay Calloway to join them for the opening of a new show, resonates with people who have not been able to go to a real concert, or a cinema for that matter, in two years.

That the second-best thing is a superhero is only noteworthy when one considers that Spider-Man: No Way Home has been in theaters for what has seemed to be forever and has only now lost its number one spot. 156,000 people went to buy tickets for Spidey for a total of 1.6 million which brings the red-and-blue clad crusader to €40 million euros and 3.9 million tickets overall. The King’s Man – The Beginning was able to defend its number three position with 52,000 tickets that amounted to €487.000 euros – hardly a super hit though, considering that it did not even come close to a six-figure amount in theatergoers (€400.000) and seems to be plateauing at €3.6 million euros. The top five in Germany were rounded out by Scream with 48,000 visitors and €457.000 euros, and the ever-lasting House of Gucci with 42,000 tickets and €447.000 in sales receipts. For Germany, the weekend was not bad with 750,000 fans flocking to the cinema and total receipts of just over €7 million.

Like their northern neighbors, Austria’s Spidey-fans are helping the film stay in the number two spot, while still loving pins, needles, and murderous threads with House of Gucci staying in number three. Scream and The King’s Man – The Beginning make up the fourth and fifth positions. The sixth spot is worth mentioning: Austrians so love opera that Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto from the New York Metropolitan Opera House sang its way to another € 40.000 euros.

The only new release in Austria that made it into the top 25 was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Golden Globe-nominated comedy Licorice Pizza, a film that is expected to slowly climb the charts after some positive word-of-mouth conquers what may be a tough marketing campaign in the face of animated characters and superheroes.