Here’s another batch of 2009 box office and admissions data reported in recent days by Cineuropa.org and Film New Europe.
The 161 titles released theatrically in Estonia clocked up 1.78 million admissions, a rise of 11% on 2008 (Ice Age 3, the top placed film of the year, sold 186,000 tickets). Local films fared less well, sharing only 2% of the market, and no Estonian picture made it into the top ten performers for the first time in seven years.
Finland saw annual admissions fall by 2.4% to 6.7 million, and Finnish films shared 15% of the local market (down from 23% in 2008). Four local titles surpassed 100,000 ticket sales: Aleksi Mäkelä's Hellsinki (256,000 admissions), Dome Karukoski’s Forbidden Fruit (115,147 admissions) and Timo Koivusalo’s Under the North Star (101,152 admissions).
Greece followed a similar pattern to Estonia in 2009, with annual admissions rising 30% to 13.5 million, while local films’ market share fell to 12.6% (down from 19.2% the previous year). 2012 was the biggest selling film (477,500 admissions), followed by Angels and Demons (414,000) and Quantum of Solace (391,000). Bang Bang was the highest placed Greek film, pulling in 382,000 admissions.
Figures released by the UK Film Council earlier this week confirm the annual box office and admissions totals reported previously. The new report (The UK box office in 2009) also reveals UK films achieved a market share of 16.5% in 2009, down from 31.1% in 2008 (when The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! led the rankings) and the lowest share figure since 2003 (when it stood at 15.9%).
On the plus side, the UK Film Council has been good to its word by drawing a clearer distinction between the market performance of all UK-qualifying films (including those backed by US studios, like the Harry Potter franchise) and those UK films produced independently of the studios. This latter category actually saw a rise in market share in 2009, increasing from 5.7% in 2008 to 8.5% in 2009 (the average for the period 2000 to 2009 is 5.4%).
Table 1: Selected 2009 admissions, box office revenues and national market shares
Numbers above 1 have been rounded to nearest whole integer.
* UK and Republic of Ireland box office gross = £1.05 billion.
** This total is for all UK-qualifying films, including inward investment features made with US studio involvement. UK films produced independently of US studios shared 8.5% of the home market.
'-' = data unavailable
Sources:
China Film Group, CNC, Cinetel, Cineuropa.org, Film New Europe, Nielsen EDI, UK Film Council, Adams Media Research.
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