PARIS.- The French returned with growing enthusiasm to the halls of cine in 2023 after the long pause of COVID-19with 180.76 million tickets in 2023, an increase of 18.9% compared to 2022, according to official figures this Tuesday.
France, where sanitary restrictions in theaters were lifted in 2023: “it achieves the best recovery among comparable countries thanks to the diversity of works offered, especially French ones, and the commitment of our movie theaters,” the president of the National Film Center (CNC), Dominique Boutonnat.
France already showed a vigorous rebound in 2022, with 152.02 million admissions (+59.2% compared to 2021).
But the figures for the year just ended show that the average attendance is still 13.1% lower than the average for the years 2017 to 2019, years that were the best in half a century for French cinema (207.95 million).
Rebound in other countries
For comparison, Spain registered 74.9 million viewers, an increase of 26% compared to 2022, according to Comscore figures.
The number of Spanish viewers also remains below the 2015-2019 average (-16%), according to Comscore.
In general, European countries remain behind the best years of cinema attendance: in Germany, according to figures up to November 2023, the drop compared to 2017-2019 was 14%, in Italy it was 22%. .
The US market still has a delay of 21% in its income and the United Kingdom of 13%, points out the French CNC.
The top 5 of the most watched films in France is dominated by the United States: Super Mario Bros, Barbie y Avatar: the sense of waterexceeded 5 million entries, as Oppenheimer.
Two French productions exceeded 4 million: Asterix and Obelix and the Middle Kingdom (4th in the ranking with 4.45 million) and Alibi.com 2 (6th with 4.18 million).
The market share of French films remains at 39.8% (71.9 million admissions), compared to 41.3% for American films (74.7 million).
“We are one of the countries with the highest market share for local cinema, far ahead of the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain or Italy,” the CNC highlighted to AFP.
Source: AFP
