"From what our distributors are telling us, we expect that it will sell well over one million tickets outside of Denmark," says Peter Aalbaek Jensen, Lars von Trier's partner and director of Zentropa, to the Danish news agency Ritzau.
Despite the controversy in Cannes, the Danish director's grandiose sci-fi vision has been well-received by audiences and critics since its release at the festival, including Russia and France where the film opened in July and early August, respectively.
High praise from French critics
In France critics from the top newspapers were full of praise. "This is as beautiful as it gets," Le Figaro wrote about von Trier's "masterpiece". "Sometimes you feel that cinema is an art form invented precisely for people like Lars von Trier, so that there may exist films like this one."
Critics agreed on the whole that von Trier's film is anything but "provocative" and could more rightfully be considered his most balanced work, and they compare the film's evocative images and visions of melancholy with paintings by Surrealists and Symbolists as well as Albrecht Dürer's famous engraving "Melancholia I" from 1514.
Next stop Toronto
According to boxofficemojo.com, "Melancholia" has grossed 1.97 m US dollars in all since its world premiere in May. Over the next few months the film will be opening in major territories such as Germany, Spain, England and the US.
"Melancholia" will be showcased at the Toronto Film Festival 8-18 September and the New York Film Festival held late September, leading up to distributor Magnolia's wide US release on 11 November.
See boxoffice chart at boxofficemojo.com