MEXICO CITY — Jose Padilha‘s action-packed police movie Elite Squad 2 has shot to the top as Brazil’s highest grossing domestic film and it’s on track to surpass Avatar as the nation’s all-time box office champ.
Brazilian trade magazine Filme B, which cites the latest box office report from state-run film financing agency Ancine, said on Wednesday that Elite Squad 2 has raked in about $59 million after a two-month run in theaters, eclipsing the 1976 release of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands as Brazil’s most successful hit.
Produced by Globo Filmes and Zazen Producoes, Elite Squad 2 centers on a special police unit that battles armed drug dealers in a Rio de Janeiro slum. The release of the film comes at a time as police and military operations intensify in Rio de Janeiro’s shantytown districts. The crackdown on crime is part of ongoing efforts to spruce up the city as it prepares to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
Recent conflicts have left scores of people dead in two of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods.
Elite Squad, Padilha’s freshman feature, won the Golden Berlin Bear in 2008. Elite Squad 2 will make its North American debut in the out-of-competition Spotlight section at Sundance in January.
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