After a slow summer start with dipping ticket sales in June, the French box office jumped back to life in July with 18.38m tickets sold, powered by ‘Barbenheimer’ and US blockbusters. Ticket sales were up 33.3% compared to the same month in 2022 and 10.1% more than the pre-pandemic 2017-2019 average.
Warner Bros’ Barbie and Universal’s Oppenheimer alone accounted for 25% of ticket sales for the month. Barbie led the pack with 2.6m admissions followed by Indiana Jones And The Dial of Destiny, released on June 28 in France, with 2.5m. Oppenheimer trailed with 1.87m and Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1, released July 12, with 1.8m.
Rounding off the US-dominated top five was Disney’s animated Elementary, released June 21, but still going strong through July.
Of the 48 films released in July in France, just 10 were American and 21 were French, but the US titles dominated nonetheless.
French animated title Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir Miraculous (SND) has managed to hold its own alongside the likes of Tom Cruise, Barbie and Indiana Jones with 1.33m admissions. The breakout hit sold 318,144 tickets on its opening day on July 5, a record for a French animated film and the film is currently #2 on Netflix’s global top 10 films in any language.
Pathé also re-released its 2002 hit Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra that amassed an impressive 375,000 more tickets in July, adding to the 15m it sold during its original release. Also boosting the French box office in July was French exhibitor’s association the FNCF’s Fête du Cinema that ran July 2-5 and saw 3.1m tickets sold for the initiative whereby movie tickets cost €5.
In art house fare, Pierre Jolivet’s Green Tide (Haut et Court) has sold 280,000 tickets since its July 12 release.
Since the start of the year, French cinemas have seen nearly 109m admissions, a +25.5% increase compared to the first seven months of 2022, but still 10.1% less than the 2017-2019 pre-pandemic average.
The French box office has continued to show signs of a strong comeback throughout the year, owing mostly to major US studio releases, but also a handful of big-budget local fare like Pathe’s Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom and The Three Musketeers - D’Artagnan or crowd-pleasing comedies like Philippe Lacheau’s Alibi.com 2 (Studiocanal). June was the anomaly with an 11.8% dip in ticket sales compared to 2022, but July’s figures are a sign that the country’s theatrical distribution pulse is still healthy.
August releases including The Meg 2: The Trench (Warner Bros.), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Paramount), Gran Turismo (Sony) and homemade fare like Quentin Dupieux’s Yannick (Diaphana) and Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall (Le Pacte) should keep the momentum up through Fall.
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