'Resident Evil: Retribution' Holds Off Til Schweiger's 'Guardians' at German Box Office

COLOGNE, Germany - Milla Jovovich and her director/husband Paul W.S. Anderson held off a box office assault from German star Til Schweiger this weekend as Anderson's Resident Evil: Retribution took the number one slot at the local box office for a second week running, despite major competition from Schweiger's new film, the action drama Guardians.

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Schweiger wrote, directed and co-stars in Guardians as an ex-German special forces solider tasked with protecting a teenager (played by Schweiger's real-life daughter Luna Schweiger), who is the sole witness to a killing. The film outsold Resident Evil: Retribution at the German till, with 160,000 admissions compared to Evil's 135,000. But the 3D surcharge for Resident Evil: Retribution put the fifth entry in the sci-fi zombie franchise on top with a weekend take of just under $2 million (€1.46 million) compared to $1.7 million (€1.33 million) for Guardians.

In total, Resident Evil: Retribution has sold just under half a million tickets in German for a box office to date of $6.4 million (€5 million). Globally, the film looks set to pass the $200 million mark this week.

The two actioners dominated the German box office, accounting for around a third of all tickets sold this past weekend. Hope Springs, the drama starring Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell, was a distant third on the charts, with 100,000 admissions.

Both Resident Evil: Retribution and Guardians are German productions. Resident Evil 5 was produced by Anderson's Impact Pictures shingle, a subsidiary of Munich-based Constantin Film. Schweiger produced Guardians through his barefoot films production company together with Warner Bros. Germany.