French box office rises 19% in 2023, boosted by healthy mix of Hollywood blockbusters and domestic releases
The French box office jumped 19% in 2023 to a total of 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) from 181.2 million tickets, according to Comscore France.
Unlike 2022, when American films exclusively dominated the top 10, 2023 was boosted by a mix of Hollywood blockbusters and French films. It is worth noting that “Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom” – Pathé’s big-budget comedy adventure based on the famous French comic book – sold slightly more tickets than Universal’s Christopher Nolan epic “Oppenheimer”.
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Two other French films ranked in the top 10: Studiocanal’s “Alibi.com 2,” the sequel to Philippe Lauchault’s adultery comedy series, and Pathé’s “The Three Musketeers: d’Artagnan” (pictured) , the first of two films. -Part of the adventure saga based on the classic novel by Alexandre Dumas. The three highest-grossing films of 2023 in France were “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” an animated video game adaptation from Universal, Illumination and Nintendo; Greta Gerwig “Barbie” from Warner Bros.; And James Cameron’s “Avatar: Water Road”, produced by Disney and 20th Century Studios.
In a sign that the French box office market is on a healthy track, the box office overall was less concentrated than in 2022, with the top 30 films representing 44.6% of total ticket sales, compared to 48.3% in 2022.
“The theater business in France has recovered from the pandemic faster than most other countries in Europe and beyond,” says Eric Marty of Comscore France. “On par with Japan, France is down 12.8% compared to pre-pandemic times, based on average admissions sold between 2015 and 2019.” Other leading European markets such as Germany, Spain and Italy are still down 17%, 24% and 21.8%, respectively, compared to pre-Covid-19 numbers.
The National Film Council (CNC) also noted that the volume of US film releases is up, with 81 films compared to 68 films in 2022. But that number is still lower than pre-coronavirus times, when an average of 127 US films were released annually. Between 2020 and 2022. Years 2017 and 2019. US film production may decline further in 2024 due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, which halted production for nearly half of 2023.
However, despite this decline in the number of American films released in French theatres, their market share last year remained stable at 41.3%. The market share of French films reached 39.8%, according to the center, which took into account all French films, especially French minority co-productions.
Besides “Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom”, “Alibi.com 2” and “The Three Musketeers: d’Artagnan”, a wide range of French films performed well in 2023. This includes the wonderful animated series “Miraculous”. Director Jeremy Zag and arthouse fare like Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron”; “Anatomy of a Fall,” the Golden Globe-nominated film from director Justine Tritt; and “All Your Faces,” directed by Jeanne Hyrie, a star-studded film about survivors of abuse seeking restorative justice. Besides “Anatomy of a Fall,” other awards contenders that made the top 30 films in France in 2023 include Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” and Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” with 1.56 million and 1.26 million sold. Million tickets in a row. A number of highly anticipated feature films will be released in January, most notably Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bad Things,” Todd Haynes’ “May December,” and Jonathan Glazer’s “Area of Interest.”
Box office figures were calculated using an estimated average ticket price of €7.35 for 2023 provided by Comscore France.
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