Studiocanal’s epic romance Beating Hearts kept the French box office pumping through the month of November as Paramount’s Gladiator II opened to boost ticket sales to a total 17.7 million, up 17% from the same month last year, according to the CNC.
Total box office for the month was an estimated €127m, based on an average ticket price of €7.20.
Beating Hearts was the biggest film for a second month, adding 2.2m admissions to its nearly 4.5m total according to CBO figures. It is now Studiocanal’s highest grossing film in France to date and among the top five titles of the year to be released in France.
Gladiator II has muscled its way to 2m tickets since its November 13 release. Further big US titles on release in November include Sony’s Venom: The Last Dance, (1.4m admissions), Warner Bros’ Juror #2 (1.3m) and Universal’s The Wild Robot (which sold 492,000 more tickets for a total of 1.72m).
Local titles continue to thrive into November with Pathe’s Charles Aznavour biopic Monsieur Aznavour adding 1.3million more admissions for a total of 1.9 million and openers including Apollo Films’ Miss Violet which stars Alexandra Lamy as a 19th century schoolteacher, selling 542,000 tickets.
Two big awards season hopefuls opened in France in November: Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winner Anora garnered 513,000 admissions for Le Pacte, while Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance drew 434,000 for Metropolitan Filmexport.
With admissions of 2.2 million from Wednesday through Sunday, Walt Disney Animation Studios’ November 27 release Moana 2 became the biggest opening weekend ever for an animated film in France. It also boasted the best first weekend ticket sales in France in 2024 (excluding school and public holidays)
Furthermore, Pathe Live’s November 7 release of French pop star Mylène Farmer’s concert film Nevermore broke the record for a one-night-only event film release with 210,000 admissions.
2024
Admissions for the first 11 months of the year hit 161m (€1.2bn), down 1.3% from 2023 in France. Cinemas have seen a record bounce back in the latter half of the year with May-November ticket sales reaching 105.1m (€757m), up 9.7% from the same period in 2023, and just 1.4% shy of the pre-pandemic 2017-2019 average.
The market share for French films for the first 11 months of the year is 46%, up from 39.9% last year; US films took a 34.2% market share, down from 42.4% in 2023.
Thanks to the strength of local titles, France is poised to finish the year strong despite a slow start due to the lack of US titles and is hoping to match the 181m admissions recorded in 2023.
US films opening in December include Universal’s Wicked, Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King, Universals’ Nosferatu and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Local language films in the month ahead include the Boukherma brothers’ Venice premiere And Their Children After Them (released by Warner Bros.), Noemie Merlant’s comedy-horror The Balconettes (Tandem), and Pablo Aguero’s Saint Ex starring Louis Garrel, Diane Kruger and Vincent Cassel (Studiocanal).
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