Magic beat magic at last weekend’s box office when another Marvel hero took the lead over the beasts in Germany. And opera fans proved once again that they love a classic Puccini.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness took the top spot by a mile this past weekend, putting Fantastische Tierwesen 3: Dumbledores Geheimnisse (Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore) firmly in number two. It has been six years since Benedict Cumberbatch first inhabited the role of the powerful magician. In this new installment, directed by Sam Raimi of earlier Spiderman fame, Doctor Strange casts a forbidden spell that opens the door to the multiverse that wreaks chaos and havoc across all dimensions. He then has to save the universe with the help of Wong, played by Benedict Wong who has advanced to “sorcerer supreme” and Wanda Maximoff (Elisabeth Olsen) in order to prevent the extinction of humankind. Naturally, the film has the usual spectacular special effects that go with the end-of-time theme.

The original film made $ 677 worldwide, so it should come as no surprise that there is now a sequel.

The Lost City – Das Geheimnis der Verlorenen Stadt placed third and Downton Abbey 2 slipped to fourth. It is a live opera recording that managed to have the highest debut in the fifth spot, proving once again that German-speaking movie fans love this genre. Turandot – Puccini (MET 2022), originally a Franco Zefirelli production had its world premiere at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, in 1926. Puccini’s final opera is an epic fairy tale set in a China of legend, loosely based on a play by 18th-century Italian dramatist Carlo Gozzi. Featuring a most unusual score with an astounding and innovative use of chorus and orchestra, it is still recognizably Puccini. The newest version was taped at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Even though some reviews list Anna Netrebko as the lead, this is an error: the Russian-born diva who lives in Vienna, refusing to condemn Putin’s war on Ukraine at first (she later changed her political tune), was banned by the MET and other opera houses. For this production fittingly Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska took over in the title role of the legendary cold-hearted princess. Tenor Yonghoon Lee is the bold prince determined to win Turandot’s love, alongside soprano Ermonela Jaho as the devoted servant Liù and legendary bass Ferruccio Furlanetto as the blind king Timur. The conductor is Marco Armiliato.

In the sixth spot is a beloved children’s character: Die Biene Maja – Das Geheime Königreich (Maja, the Bee – The Golden Orb) is a film version of the incredibly popular cartoon series that has been around since the 1970s, starring a lovely bee, her best friend and bee boy Willi and her clumsy grasshopper friend Flip. This is the third film in the series and the only new family film in the top ten which are rounded out by The Northman, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Eingeschlossene Gesellschaft, and The Batman.

In Austria, the charts largely resemble Germany with a difference in the top two, where Fantastische Tierwesen 3: Dumbledores Geheimnisse (Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore) is still number one with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness debuting in second place. Worth a mention are two other new releases, the Austrian production of Der Onkel – The Hawk is a dark comedy based on novelist Michael Glawogger’s third book of his “Rock’n Roll” trilogy in which a gambler called Mike Bittini (Michael Ostrowski) learns that his brother Sandro is in a coma and sees his chance to ingratiate himself with the estranged family, possibly inherit some money and definitely get back with his former love Gloria (Anke Engelke) – who just happens to be his brother’s wife.

The other new release worth mentioning is the documentary Nawalny by director Daniel Roher, who was able to film dissident and activist Nawalny during his exile in Germany. The film shows the reasons and repercussions of the poison attack on Anatoljewitsch Nawalny and explores Russia’s power structures.

The doc could not be timelier.