It’s official: Parasite is bigger than Jesus. By which we mean, bigger than The Passion Of The Christ. For over 15 years Mel Gibson’s film about the crucifixion of Jesus, spoken entirely in Hebrew, Latin and reconstructed Aramaic, was the most successful foreign-language film of all time at the UK box office, earning over £11 million across its theatrical run. But now that figure has been overtaken by Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-winning runaway success.
The film’s UK distributor Curzon Artificial Eye shared the news in a celebratory tweet, and has since confirmed the film’s current UK tally of £11,458,707. Director Bong’s suspense-thriller-dark-comedy-social satire crashing into UK cinemas and acting like it owns the place? It’s so metaphorical! Parasite’s British box office success coincided with the film winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film at the Oscars, the awards coming one week into the film’s UK release – evidently coaxing audiences to jump the one-inch barrier of subtitles to see the film the whole world was talking about.
The success of Parasite looks set to continue, too – the Bong-approved Black & White edition is due to arrive in UK cinemas from 3 April, sure to add an extra bump of ticket sales from repeat business and hardcore fans. Who’s up for another round?