French Box Office Surges 19% in 2023, Bolstered by Healthy Mix of Hollywood Blockbusters and Local Releases
02.01.2024 - 14:03
/ variety.com
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The French box office jumped 19% in 2023 with an estimated €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) grossed from 181.2 million tickets, according to Comscore France. Unlike in 2022, when the top 10 was exclusively dominated by U.S.
movies, 2023 was bolstered by a mix of Hollywood blockbusters and French fare. Notably, “Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom” — Pathé’s big-budget comedy adventure inspired by the cult French comics — sold slightly more tickets than Christopher Nolan’s epic “Oppenheimer” from Universal.
Two other French movies ranked in the top 10: Studiocanal’s “Alibi.com 2,” the second installment of Philippe Laucheau’s comedy series riffing on adultery, and Pathé’s “The Three Musketeers: d’Artagnan” (pictured), the first of a two-part adventure saga based on Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel. The three top-grossers of 2023 in France were “The Super Mario Bros.
Movie,” the animated video game adaptation from Universal, Illumination and Nintendo; Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” from Warner Bros.; and James Cameron’s “Avatar: the Way of Water” from Disney and 20th Century Studios. A sign that the French box office market is on a healthy track, the box office was overall less concentrated than in 2022, with the top 30 movies repping 44.6% of all ticket sales, compared to 48.3% in 2022.
“The theatrical business in France has recovered from the pandemic faster than most other countries in Europe and abroad,” says Eric Marti at Comscore France. “On par with Japan, France is down 12.8% compared with pre-pandemic times, based on the average of 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,
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