Viewers can now purchase tickets for the Film Festival, which will be held until Thursday, June 6, for 3.5 euros, both online and on the cinema websites or at the theater box offices. According to the Federation of Cinemas of Spain (FECE), this new edition of the Film Festival will have the participation of 334 theaters from all over Spain, which add up to a total of 2,935 screens. During those four days, viewers will be able to enjoy films such as “Imaginary Friends”, “Arthur”, “Back to Black”“Freefall”, “Dune: Part Two”“The Georgetown Exorcism”, “Evil Does Not Exist”, “Kingdom on the Planet of the Apes”, “The last summer”“Fireworks”, “Furious”“Garfield”, “Godzilla and Kong: The New Empire”“Haikyu!! The Battle of the Dumpster”, “Until the End of the World”, “The House”, “The Sleeping Woman”, “Irene’s Promise”, “What happens next”“The Good Teachers”, “Mamifera”, “Menudas Pieces”, “Nina” and “Second prize”among other. The initiative now has more than 30 million viewers among all the editions that have been held since 2009.
So far this year, attendance at the cinema It has stood 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 “the lack of high-volume content” (the so-called “blockbusters”) at this time of year, due to delays caused by the strikes of scriptwriters and actors from Hollywood last year.
The FECE exhibitors federation, which brings together 90% of Spanish exhibition halls, believes the same. “There has been a lack of a film equivalent to ”Super Mario Bros” that we had last year,” its general director, Luis Gil, told EFE, who considers it “very important” that there are films that generate a lot of interest because “they draw on the whole, 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” – skyrocketed the box office. 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 equaling 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,” she says.
If we talk about independent cinema, the situation is somewhat different. Enrique Costa, co-president of the association of independent distributors ADICINE, 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, recently returned from Cannes where his distributor, Elástica, has acquired, along with Wanda, one of the most acclaimed titles, ‘Emilia Pérez’ by Jacques Audiard.
