RIA Novosti reports some good news for the long suffering Russian film industry - total revenues from 2004 increased to $350 million, and market research suggests that audiences are getting older and more discriminating in their tastes, "older people who miss patriotic plots and home-made heroes have rejoined the audience". Implicit in the decline of the 13 to 25 year old male audience demographic will be a reduced emphasis on low brow sexuality and explosions in favor of quality drama.

Russian films have now claimed 15% of their domestic market, whetting director's appetites for foreign distribution possibilities. As previously noted here, the spooky Russian hit of 2004, Night Watch, is poised for release in the U.S. Night Watch proved so successful that it will be the first installment in a three part action/horror series (imagine the Matrix films with werewolves and vampires).

A prime candidate for a major distribution deal in the U.S. next year is the upcoming war drama The Ninth Platoon, about a group of Red Army soldiers fighting in Afghanistan in 1988-89.

"This movie will have a record start - 410 copies, and we have high hopes for it," said Vadim Ivanov. "But its marketing is quite difficult because it is a war drama. We don't know whether it makes sense to release such an expensive movie about a war which is still fresh in people's memories. This war affected many Russians who are now over the age of 35. But we hope for a broad audience, because young people can also identify with the main characters." Fyodor Bondarchyuk himself is a star of an entertainment channel that is popular with the younger generation, and other actors in the movie are also idols of the young.