Attendance at Quebec cinemas continued to rise for a third year in a row after falling drastically in 2020, but it still remains below pre-pandemic levels.
Last year, theaters attracted 14.6 million spectators, according to data from the Observatory of Culture and Communications of the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ), published Wednesday.
This represents a 29% jump compared to 2022. However, it is a 22% decline when the result is compared with that of 2019, before the health crisis.
Among the factors that could explain this gap, there is “the number of screenings, which has not returned to the pre-pandemic level (-13% compared to 2019), the drop in the number of active cinemas between 2019 and 2023 (96 to 93) and changes in film consumption habits,” the ISQ indicates in a press release.
The author of the report, Marc-Andy Lubin, mentions in his conclusions that the coming years should be monitored in order to “see if the closure of theaters during the pandemic will have left lasting effects on public attendance practices.”
In 2023, more than 827,000 screenings and 537 new releases were presented in Quebec movie theaters. These indicators are also up compared to 2022. This “is partly explained by the opening of movie theaters throughout the year, a first since 2019,” notes the ISQ.
Movie box office revenue totaled $146.9 million in 2023, up from $108.5 million the previous year.
The American animated film Super Mario Bros is the one that attracted the greatest number of spectators in Quebec movie theaters, exceeding the million mark. It is followed by Barbie, Avatar: The Way of Water, Oppenheimer And Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3.
In terms of revenue, however, the top spot goes to Avatar which raised 10.7 million. Super Mario Bros comes in a close second with $10.4 million in revenue.
James Cameron’s film was able to sneak into the lead thanks to the success of 3D screenings, which accounted for 69% of the film’s admissions, according to the ISQ report. It should be noted that the ticket price increases by a few dollars for this type of format.
The share of Quebec cinema is increasing
The time of a summer by director Louise Archambault is the only Quebec feature film to have made it into the top 20 most popular films of the year. It finished 16the rank with more than 220,000 admissions and $1.9 million in revenue.
Overall, Quebec cinema had a prolific 2023, surpassing pre-pandemic results. The number of admissions for films from La Belle Province reached nearly 1.8 million, accounting for 12% of the audience share. As for box office receipts, they amounted to 15.4 million.
In 2019, local films recorded 1.4 million admissions for revenues of 11.6 million dollars.
“The actors’ strike in Hollywood probably had an additional effect on the pandemic and thus favored a larger share of Quebec films in 2023,” suggests the author of the report.
Mr. Lubin points out that Quebec’s share of attendance in 2023 is the second highest since 2009, excluding 2020 and 2021 where “Quebec films benefited from the absence of their competitors.”
“Analysis of the share of Quebec films in box office admissions over a 20-year period shows that after a downward trend until 2016, a slight upward trend is emerging despite strong variations from one year to the next,” he writes, specifying that we will have to wait a little longer before observing the new trend that will emerge after the pandemic years.