August 09, 2026

Not Quite a Fairy-Tale Ending


Not Quite a Fairy-Tale Ending
If this doesn't make you want to see the movie (I'm not sure why it would), I don't know what will. Posledny Bogatyr: Kolobok, IMDb.

A movie retelling of a Russian fairy tale is set to become a flop of legendary proportions.

The Last Bogatyr: Kolobok is a Russian-made fantasy film, a retelling of the Russian version of The Gingerbread Man that is a collaboration between multiple production companies, including the state-run streaming service START and state TV channel Rossiya 1. To industry insiders, apparently, it had all the hallmarks of a kid-friendly summer blockbuster — so much so that quasi-official screenings of the new Spiderman movie were delayed a month to clear the schedule for Kolobok.

The scale of the failure is shocking. Independent outlet Govorit NeMoskva reviewed premiere showings of Kolobok in the cities of Vladivostok, Irkutsk, Penza, Ivanovo, Arkhangelsk, and Kaliningrad, and found that there were only a handful of tickets pre-purchased before the film's August 6 premiere. Irkutsk topped the list, with a full eight tickets sold. This was followed by Penza, with four; then Kaliningrad with three; two in Archangelsk; and none in Ivanovo or Vladivostok.

Reportedly, the movie has so far only made R3.6 million (about $44,000) vs. the R250-million ($3 million) it cost to make. The Russian review site Kinoafisha currently has Kolobok at a rating of 1.2/10; the IMDb listing is even worse. Comments on the trailer on YouTube universally express frustration at the delay of Spiderman for the sake of a low-quality film.

To be fair, though, what can you expect for a movie about an anthropomorphic bun?

While the movie appears high-budget, with sweeping fantasy landscapes and impressive CGI, the animation of the kolobok himself is... interesting. Check out the trailer yourself:

 

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