Italy's Medusa welcomes 'Sticks'

Film has grossed $193 million in France

"Bienvenue," a heart-warmer about a Provencal postal worker forcibly uprooted to a small town in the North where he can't understand the dialect, the food or the locals' many quirks, has scored north of 19 million admissions in Gaul, a country of 65 million. Pic's grossed more than $204 million in the four countries in which it is playing, most of it in France.

Phenom is now close to overtaking "Titanic" as Gaul's box office champ.

Since the humor is largely sparked by local patois, there are doubts about how many non-French funny bones the movie's regional in-jokes will tickle. British auds, for example, did not catch "Bienvenue" fever.

Pic has also been released in Belgium and Switzerland to nowhere near its local success level.

Medusa topper Giampaolo Letta told Daily Variety that the distrib will "work very hard on dubbing and cultural adaptation" and the film will be ready for a wide Italo release in the fall.

"It's hard to translate local humor, but there is a cultural affinity between Italy and France, so I think it can work," Letta added.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.