With the box office at half throttle and the prospect of a difficult summer, the Film Festival returns next week offering tickets at reduced prices in order to fill the theaters at a time when the battle for the viewer’s attention is increasingly tougher. .
For four days, from June 3 to 6, the films on the billboard can be seen at a price of 3.50 euros in more than 334 cinemas throughout Spain adhered to this joint initiative of exhibitors and distributors, supported by the Ministry of Culture through the ICAA.
So far this year, attendance at the cinema has been at 55% compared to the average recorded in the same period between 2017 and 2019, before the pandemic, according to data from Comscore Spain, and last weekend was one of the worst, despite the premiere of ‘Furiosa’, from the Mad Max saga.
For Joaquín Vegas, director of that consulting firm, the main cause of this decline is “lack of high-volume content” (the so-called ‘blockbusters’) at this time of year, due to the delays caused by the strikes of Hollywood screenwriters and actors last year.
The FECE exhibitors federation, which brings together 90% of Spanish exhibition halls, believes the same. “There has been a lack of a movie equivalent to ‘Super Mario Bros’ that we had last year,” said its general director, Luis Gil, who considers it “very important” that there are films that generate a lot of interest because “they pull together, they have a positive effect.”
Both speak of a “valley period” in collections and are betting that the data will improve between now and the end of the year. “With the film festival and the titles that come in June we hope to make a comeback and reach the peak of viewers,” says Gil.
Last summer the unexpected ‘Barbieheimer’ effect – due to the consecutive release of ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ – the box office skyrocketed. Although Vegas finds it difficult to match it this year, it is confident in upcoming titles such as ‘Inside out 2’, ‘Gru 4’, ‘Padre no hay mas que uno 4’ and ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’.
Until now the post-pandemic path has been one of progressive recovery, without reaching pre-2020 levels. Last year specifically, attendance grew by 29.7%, with 76.7 million viewers compared to 59.1 in 2022.
The fear of a slowdown is there and taking into account the difficult situation this year due to the aftermath of the strikes, Vegas believes that “At least matching last year’s data would be good data.” No one seems to be thinking about returning to the levels of 2019, when almost 105 million viewers were registered.
“Reaching 85 million would be a satisfactory figure to be able to talk about recovery, we have a bite left,” says Gil, taking into account the general change in consumer habits. “There are more and more leisure options and the fight for the viewer’s attention is increasing,” it states.
If we talk about independent cinema, the situation is somewhat different. Enrique Costa, co-president of the association of independent distributors ADICINAnd, he assures that for them the first months of the year have been “even better” than last year.
Costa predicts “a complicated summer” but an “exciting” autumn/winter, having just returned from Cannes where its distributor, Elástica, has acquired, together with Wanda, one of the most acclaimed titles, ‘Emilia Pérez’ by Jacques Audiard.
In any case, he maintains that “we must forget” about what happened before 2020, “comparing yourself with figures from another era is not fair,” he says and defends “the ability to adapt” that they have shown after covid.
‘Anatomy of a fall’, by Justine Triet, distributed by Elástica and Filmin, was the best premiere of a Palme d’Or in the last ten years and was only seen in cinemas by 400,000 spectators. “If we manage to have films that attract, the viewer comes to the theater,” insists Costa.
Among the titles that can be seen at this twenty-second Film Festival are ‘Furiosa’ by George Miller, he biopic about Amy Winehouse ‘Back to black’, John Krasinski’s family film debut ‘Imaginary Friends’, the second installment of ‘Dune’, ‘Garfield’ either ‘Godzilla and King Kong’.
Also ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’, the latest sensation of Italian cinema ‘We will always have tomorrow’, Isaki Lacuesta’s film about The Planets ‘Second prize’, ‘Nina’ de Andrea Jaurrieta o ‘Until the end of the world’ by Viggo Mortensen.
