Attendance in French cinemas is doing well in 2023 and in particular thanks to several films which are currently acting as “locomotive”.
Cinemas in France are full at the moment. No less than five million spectators went to see a film in the last week of October alone and the tickets sold this year have already exceeded the total for 2022. The context of the holidays in gloomy weather plays a lot, but not only because several office films of “locomotive”.
In front of a Parisian cinema, there are several spectators happy to wait to enter a room, to see The Boy and the Heron by Hayao Miyazaki, Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese or even 3 days Max by Tarek Boudali.
French comedy 3 days max is leading the entries in recent days with a million entries in just one week. It is followed by another French production, The animal kingdom by Thomas Cailley, with more than 800,000 tickets sold thanks to excellent word of mouth.
Thierry Lacaze, distribution director of StudioCanal, is a happy man, since he is in charge of both films. “Already a French auteur film which has attracted a million admissions, it’s magnificent”rejoices Thierry Lacaze.
“We are lucky to be in a country where the public is extremely movie-loving, or at least movie-loving. As a result, they are very curious and this allows certain films to have absolutely exceptional careers in France and that is the case of the film ‘The Animal Kingdom’.”
Thierry Lacaze, distribution director of StudioCanalat franceinfo
“For 3 days max, in the absence of a big American machinehe emphasizes, we knew that we had a big shot to play on a so-called popular audience and also a younger audience during these October holidays. The figures prove it with a fairly phenomenal percentage of almost 60% of the public who are under 25 years old.”
Another cardboard in the making, The boy and the heron, the latest Miyazaki, got off to a very high start with 140,000 admissions on its first day of operation. But also, more astonishingly, the 300,000 spectators of the Consent yet difficult film dealing with child crime, but supported by the TikTok network.
It is the quality and diversity of the films on display which explains the good trend of the moment, according to professionals. “We are lucky to have great authors, whether in France or abroad, diversity, big names, quality,” says Richard Patry, head of the federation of French cinemas. “There are a lot of beautiful French films and of all nationalities. This addition makes for very good attendance at the moment.”
Another film with high admissions potential arrives in theaters on Wednesday November 8: the biopic of Abbé Pierre, directed by Frédéric Tellier