His new family comedy brings more than half a million viewers to the theaters and becomes the highest-grossing Spanish film of the year with 3.1 million euros in four days.
Since his 1998 debut with ‘Torrente: The stupid arm of the law’, Santiago Segura has directed ten feature films. After five episodes of the dandy cop, the director of Carabanchel felt that politically incorrect humor wouldn’t fit in these times of cancellation culture, so he transformed the bestial satire into white costumbrismo for the whole family.
The game went around. Segura multiplied his presence on television by presenting programs, appearing as a guest or participating in competitions – just as he did when he raised money for his shorts in this way – and after the hesitant ‘Sin rodeos’, with Maribel Verdú, he missed the mark on office’s bullseye with “Padre no hay más que uno,” the first of his comedies to be seen by his daughters, Calma and Sirena.
Released in the summer of 2019, the film was a remake of Ariel Vinograd’s Argentine comedy Mama goes on a trip, and told the adventures of a family man with his children when the woman left him alone. The following year came the sequel, which breathed oxygen into some Spanish cinemas that suffered from the closure and subsequent capacity constraints due to the pandemic. The third part was presented in 2022, demonstrating once again that the exhibitors owe a lot to him.
The film, which was released in 449 cinemas last Thursday, has raised 3.1 million euros in just four days and brought more than half a million viewers to the cinema. It tops ‘Alcarrás’, an author’s film on the other side of Segura’s, which so far had the honor of being the top-grossing Spanish film of the year with 2 million euros. According to Sony, the film’s distributor, the third part of ‘Padre no hay más que uno’ is “the best premiere of a Spanish film since 2016”, surpassing the first two parts by 78 and 44% respectively.
“After a complicated few weeks, I wake up on my birthday with the most beautiful gift imaginable: 350,000 people have already seen our film… The built-up tension, the journeys and vicissitudes, up to this point, are diluted by this overwhelming reception,” he tweeted. Segura last Sunday, recalling a shoot that was not easy at all because of the pandemic.
Antonio Resines, who played the grandfather, fell ill with covid and was in a coma in the ICU for over a month. Carlos Iglesias replaced him and the tension eventually took its toll on the director, who fell to the floor when he lost consciousness two days before the end of shooting, an accident that resulted in twelve stitches in one ear.
Santiago Segura doesn’t care that his last comedy takes place at Christmas, as a tribute to a quintessential classic of family cinema, ‘La gran familia’ (1962). He knows that the children are on vacation during these months and can go to the movies. Its appeal is superior to two American blockbusters such as the latest adventure of ‘The Minions’ and ‘Thor: Love & Thunder’. As if that weren’t enough, the main character of ‘The Day of the Beast’ returns before the end of the year with the sequel to ‘Full steam ahead! Destino Asturias’, whose first film was the top-grossing Spanish film last year with 8.5 million euros. It’s December 2, when the kids are back on vacation.
Source: La Verdad
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