Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘Parthenope’ Is Scoring Big at Italy’s Box Office

Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” is doing gangbuster business at the Italian box office, where the director’s lavish love letter to his native Naples has surpassed the €5 million ($5.3 million) mark less than two weeks after going on full release. These numbers have made it the country’s top local draw – excluding commercial comedies – of the year to date.

For its first theatrical outing since bowing at Cannes in May, new Italian distributor PiperFilm came up with a smart release strategy for “Parthenope” that involved marketing the film to youth audiences. “Parthenope” was teased with some midnight premieres in select Italian cinemas – between Sept. 19 and 25 – to stoke excitement prior to its full launch on Oct. 24.

On Wednesday, “Parthenope” reached $5.5 million in cumulative grosses from roughly 500 Italian screens, according to national box office compiler Cinetel. The film, which is Sorrentino’s 10th feature, could now become his personal best in terms of local returns. Sorrentino’s 2013 Oscar-winning hit “The Great Beauty” had pulled $4.5 million during the same amount of time it took “Parthenope” to reach $5.3 million. “Great Beauty” then went on to score more than $9.7 million in total, including intake from its rerelease following the film’s best international feature win.

To put the stellar grosses “Parthenope” is scoring at Italy’s still recovering post-pandemic box office in context, Sorrentino’s latest title has already made more than Luca Guadagnino’s hit “Challengers,” starring Zendaya. Since its April release, “Challengers” has pulled a total $4.7 million at Italian cinemas, according to Box Office Mojo.

Praised in Variety critic Siddhant Adlakha‘s review as “an exquisite treatise on cinematic beauty,” “Parthenope” is a love letter to the director’s native Naples. But also, as Sorrentino has put it, a film about “missed youth” that comes as a follow-up to his autobiographical “The Hand of God.”

The film’s titular character is a young woman born in Naples – Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans” – played by newcomer Celeste Dalla Porta who “delivers a beguiling performance,” noted Adlakha, as “a woman of such stunning beauty that people stop and stare.”

The “Parthenope” cast also includes Gary Oldman, who plays American novelist John Cheever; Luisa Ranieri, who played the emotionally troubled Aunt Patrizia in “Hand of God”; Italian icon Stefania Sandrelli, who was Bernardo Bertolucci’s muse; and Silvio Orlando, who played Cardinal Voiello in “The Young Pope.”

In early May, ahead of its Cannes bow, “Parthenope” was rapidly sold by Pathé all around the world, including to A24 for North America, during a 48-hour bidding frenzy. A24 now plans to release the film in the first part of 2025, while Pathé has set Jan. 8 as the French release date.

“Parthenope” is a Fremantle film co-produced by its The Apartment label with France’s Pathé, in association with Sorrentino’s Numero 10 shingle, PiperFilm and Saint Laurent from Anthony Vaccarello and Logical Content Ventures, with support from Canal+ and the participation of Cine+.