Paul Gross’ Passchendaele continues to drum up interest at the box office, where it added another $661,000 over the weekend, pushing its total earnings to just over $2 million for Alliance Films after its second weekend.

At that rate, the high-budget war story seems set to beat the record set by Cruising Bar 2 as the top-grossing Canadian-made film of the year. The Quebec comedy took some eight weeks to hit $3.5 million over the summer.

Passchendaele is playing on about 200 screens across Canada — its per-screen average dropping slightly from $4,500 to $3,200 over its first two weekends in theaters. It was the number two film in Canada for the week of Oct. 17-23, behind the Fox actioner Max Payne with $2.1 million.

‘I didn’t really have any expectations and I’m just thrilled that the moviegoing audience has embraced it,’ Gross tells Playback Daily.

Passchendaele follows a love story between a soldier and nurse in the midst of the First World War battle for the titular Belgian town. Gross wrote, directed and stars in the film alongside Caroline Dhavernas. It is produced through his Toronto prodco Whizbang Films, as well as Rhombus Media and Damberger Film and Cattle Company.

Meanwhile, Maple Pictures’ Saw V rang in $2 million on 273 screens in its opening weekend at the box office. The latest instalment in the horror franchise, directed by Canadian David Hackl, placed just behind Disney’s High School Musical 3 with $3.7 million on 228 screens.