This week’s real hit, literally, comes from the Williams sisters. Released on January 13^th in Italy, the film King Richard, directed by Marcus Green and starring Will Smith, immediately placed third on the box office podium, grossing €396,410 in the first three days alone. The film, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, tells the story of the two tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams through the figure of their father, Richard Williams (Will Smith), who had been their coach since their childhood in Compton, Los Angeles. The film follows Richard, who, without any formal coaching training himself, begins coaching his two daughters. His goal? To turn them into tennis champions, pioneers of a more inclusive society, able to challenge the “whites-only” strictures of the most exclusive tennis clubs. King Richard is a true story, with a larger-than-life main character, tailor-made for Will Smith.

However, compared to the previous week, the overall box office income saw a negative trend: minus 36% in takings, or €3,263,000 against the previous week’s €5,074,588 . The resurgence of the pandemic, which has put Italy at the heart of its fourth wave, with an average of 100 thousand new cases of coronavirus every day, is inevitably having an impact on the number of spectators in movie theaters.

Back to the charts, from January 10 to January 16, Spider-Man remained firmly in the lead, continuing to fly high in the skies: now unreachable, it has earned a total box office of €22,670,567, of which €679,710 came in in the last week alone. In second place (although it might not stay there for long, judging by the success of King Richard,) is Me contro Te, a kids’ comedy starring two successful Italian Youtubers. It has grossed €419,140, for a total of €2,692,22 since its debut in cinemas. Belli Ciao, a comedy by the duo Pio and Amedeo, loses a place, coming in at #4, grossing €376,027 in the last 7 days, for a total of €2,664,796.

The Matrix Resurrections also loses a place, coming in at #5, with a weekly take of €371,950, making a total of €2,246,600 since its release on January 1, 2022. The film, directed by Lana Wachowski, comes to the cinema almost 20 years after Matrix Revolutions – and 23 years since the first film in the series, 1999’s The Matrix – and is the third chapter in the chronicle, marking an end to one of the most famous and influential sci-fi sagas of this century. For that reason alone, it is attracting moviegoers to theaters like a magnet.

Scream has boomed as well this week: released on January 13, it is at #6. In the USA it has already succeeded in dethroning Spider-Man, in Italy, with €358,820 in 3 days (January 13-January 16), it could go straight into third place by next week. The bottom of the top 10 chart sees King’s Man at #7, and House of Gucci at #8; a new Italian entry is America Latina (the title refers to the city of Latina, in the coast south of Rome) at #9 and at #10 Sing 2. On streaming platforms, Monteross,i starring Carlo Bentivoglio, Tommaso Ragno and Carla Signoris. landed on Prime Video on January 17, The six episodes of the Amazon Original series are based on the best-selling novels by Alessandro Robecchi about Carlo Monterossi (Bentivoglio) a successful but unhappy television writer who, one evening, finds a gun at the door pointed at him, and starts an independent investigation to find out who wanted to kill him.