Palme d'Or Winner ‘Titane' Bombs at French Box-Office; Health Pass Blamed by its Producer

When the Spike Lee-led jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival awarded the Palme d'Or to Julia Ducournau’s “Titane,” people expected that it would do very well in its native country of France. However, the film has been a total bust there, attracting less than 225,000 ticket buyers [via Le Parisien]. In comparison, past Palme d’Or winners such as “Parasite” (1.7 million ticket buyers) and “Blue is the Warmest Color” (1 million ticket buyers) fared way better at the French box-office. And now, the blame game has begun.

“Titane” producer Christophe Reymond says that the introduction of the COVID health pass in France deterred many from going to see his film in French cinemas. According to Raymond, “the sanitary pass killed “Titane”. He added, “When the film's distributor, Diaphana, pre-purchased it four years ago, we were hoping to get 300,000 admissions. At the time, of course, the question of a possible Palme d'Or win did not arise. With the selection in Cannes and the Palme, we hoped to go to 500,000.”

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the health pass on July 12, “Titane” was set to be released two days later and it was impossible to postpone the release. While the day after its Palme d'Or win, the film attracted 20,000 people, but from July 21 and the introduction of the health pass it fell to 5,000 daily admissions.

Or maybe, no offense to Mr. Raymond, and I hate to play devil’s advocate here, the French didn’t fall hard for “Titane”? Its current audience score on AlloCiné (the French equivalent of Rotten Tomatoes) is a tepid 2.9 out of 5 stars. French critics seemed to have liked it a little more, with its aggregate score being a 3.6 out of 5, but that pales in comparison to most of the recent Palme d’Or winner who garnered higher score (with the exception of “The Square”:

2019 Parasite 4.8 (audience score: 4.5)
2018 Shoplifters 4.5 ( 4.2)
2017 The Square 3.2 (3.3)
2016 I, Daniel Blake 3.9 (4.2)
2015 Dheepan 3.6 (3.7)
2014 Winter Sleep 3.8 (3.8)
2013 Blue is the Warmest Color 4.6 (3.6)
2012 Amour 4.4 (3.8)

Back in July, I very much enjoyed the B-movie grooviness of “Titane,” and wrote:

“After her film debut “Raw,” which seems absolutely tame in comparison to this one, Ducournau is trying to go balls-out bonkers here, raising the insanity levels to 11.  She has reinvented cinematic body-horror via a combination of Cronenberg, motor fuel and sex. It’s really singular, shocking, repulsive and incendiary stuff. All slickly directed by the young French filmmaker. “