Those summer Basterds

According to BoxOfficeMojo, Inglourious Basterds is officially “the highest-grossing opening ever for a movie released in the second half of August”, with close to $40 million domestically (including Canada). In a very interesting article in the LA Times, which you should read, one passage was especially interesting to me, as you may know this website is based in Germany, where it says:

In a particularly surprising twist, however, there was much higher than usual demand to see the movie in English. Twenty-eight theaters in Germany, four times the typical number, showed the so-called “original version” that’s the same shown in the United States, indicating that audiences perhaps wanted to hear Tarantino’s celebrated dialogue in its original language or experience the movie, which features characters speaking German and French, from the perspective of its American protagonists. “Those original versions were massive,” Kosse said. “We were at the limit of breaking records with them.”

Updates: Basterds made 3.59 million pounds in the UK, topping the box office there as well (Reuters).

Update 2: A message from Germany! The movie is of course also topping the box office here, with €2.95 million (BPFilm)