Jean Lemire’s Le dernier continent will get a release in English Canada this spring following its solid showing in Quebec, where the adventure documentary has generated $600,000 to date for Seville Pictures, topping the domestic chart for two weeks in a row.

‘It has the potential to reach $1 million — there’s still a lot of steam there,’ Seville co-president David Reckziegel tells Playback Daily, noting that Continent held up well over an ‘extremely active’ Christmas period.

The doc, which follows biologist-turned-filmmaker Lemire on a mission to Antarctica, generated $247,768 on 25 screens for the week ending Jan. 3, for a very strong per-screen average of just over $9,900.

Seville has added 12 more prints for its third week, according to Reckziegel, who believes the ‘extremely good’ word of mouth will pay off during the slow, post-holiday season.

‘These prints can play for a long time…there’s fewer new releases right now,’ he adds.

Seville is currently in search of a well-known Canadian voice to narrate the English version. The distributor, which also holds international rights, will shop Continent at next month’s Berlin Film Festival.

Meanwhile, Denys Arcand’s Days of Darkness held steady at number two on the Canuck charts, having crossed the $1-million mark last week for Alliance Vivafilm. The drama added $244,518 in its fourth week in theaters, for a per-screen average of $4,290, according to Alliance. Darkness is currently playing on 49 screens, after it opened with 82 prints in Quebec on Dec. 7.

Though it was released on DVD last month, David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises continues to lure moviegoers. The thriller, which opened on Sept. 14, averaged $1,856 on eight screens last week, good for third place on the chart.

Odeon SVP of marketing and publicity Mark Slone says the distrib noticed a bump in grosses following Promises‘ Golden Globe nominations, though he notes that’s not the only reason the film continues to do well.

‘Its longevity at this point is really a function of the incredible word of mouth the film has engendered,’ he says.

Alliance SVP of home entertainment Noah Segal says the company opted to release Promises on DVD during its theatrical run to create a bigger push marketing-wise around awards season — echoing the strategy of Warner Bros. with The Departed last year.

‘That same approach was tremendously successful for Warner Bros.,’ he adds. ‘We want consumers at every level to acknowledge that [Promises] is a big film.’

Meanwhile, Disney’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets was the top film in Canada last week, where it played better in its second week, generating $4.5 million compared to $4.3 million the week prior. The action-adventure starring Nicolas Cage bumped Will Smith’s I Am Legend from the top spot. Legend has collected over $15 million at the Canuck box office thus far.