Total box office for 2023 in the UK and Ireland increased 8% compared with 2022; with the year-end takings crossing £1bn for the first time since the pandemic.
The final 2023 box office came in at £1,062,047,498, according to figures released by Comscore. That is up from £980,516,136 in 2022 – an increase of 8.3%.
It is the first time annual box office has crossed £1bn since 2019, when it was £1.35bn; with £1.38bn in both 2018 and 2017.
Republic of Ireland showed the strongest year-on-year growth in 2023, up 13%; with Wales up 10%, Northern Ireland up 9% and England and Scotland both up 8%.
The number of new releases increased, up 9% to 1,013 – also significantly ahead of pre-pandemic levels, which were around 930. 164 distributors released films, up 20.6% from 2022’s 136.
The final admissions figure for 2023 is not yet available, but is expected to exceed 130m – up from 127m in 2022.
The yearly increase is partly down to a greater number of ‘saturation’ releases (titles playing 250+ cinemas), which was up 28.9% from 135 in 2022 to 174 in 2023. This is still down slightly on the 186 in 2019, with the US strikes having had an effect last year; but is a promising indication for the future health of the sector.
Comscore noted: “There is no strong sign of the cost-of-living crisis affecting cinemagoing”, adding that ticket prices remain “seemingly affordable to the majority”.
It also highlighted the FOMO (‘fear of missing out’) appeal of cultural moments such as Barbenheimer.
Top titles
The two titles that created the neologism, Warner Bros’ Barbie and Universal’s Oppenheimer, led the year-end chart, with £95.5m and £58.7m respectively. Warner Bros also featured in the top 10 with Wonka, which has £49.2m and counting after four-and-a-half weeks on release; while Universal had number three title The Super Mario Bros. Movie with £54.8m, and number nine Puss In Boots: The Last Wish with £26m.
Warner Bros topped the distributor chart with £239.2m from its 23 new releases and 62 pre-2023 holdovers – a 22.5% market share, and an impressive 53% increase from its 2022 showing when it was third.
Having been neck-and-neck throughout the year, it pipped Universal, which made £225.4m – a 21.2% share. Disney, 2022’s top distributor in the UK and Ireland, dropped to third with £203.4m, a 19.2% market share (down on its £221.8m and 22.7% share from 2022).
Oppenheimer became the all-time number two Imax release in the territory, behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens; one fifth of the total for Christopher Nolan’s historical drama came from Imax screens. The film also scored the best ‘total positive’ rating from Comscore’s PostrTrak UK exit poll with 97% of respondents marking it ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. Barbie took the highest rating for ‘excellent’ alone, with 97%.
Summer was unsurprisingly the strongest period of the year, with six of the top 10 released in the three months from May. In a sign of diversity slowly returning to the market, the top 10 distributors’ films accounted for 91.5% of box office – down from 93.6% and 95.7% in the two preceding years.
UK-Irish titles
It was a disappointing year for homegrown UK-Irish films, with local productions down 9% compared with 2022 (£123.6m vs. £135.8m).
Wonka dominates the UK-Irish productions, with its £49.2m to date more than the rest of the top 10 combined; Comscore predicts the film will cross £60m before the end of its run.
There was then a significant drop-off to the number two title: Pathe UK’s The Great Escaper, released by Warner Bros, which made £5.3m.
Phil Clapp, chief executive of the UK Cinema Association commented on the overall figures, “Given the range of challenges UK exhibitors faced during the year, not least in terms of significantly increased operating costs, these positive box office figures for 2023 are welcome, representing a further step on the road to recovery.”
Andy Leyshon, chief executive at the Film Distributors’ Association said, “To cross the £1 billion box office threshold again was a major landmark for our industry, and with an exciting line-up of releases set for the next few years, hopefully we can continue the good momentum.”
The Comscore figures measured the 52 weeks from Friday, January 6 2023 to Thursday, January 4 2024 inclusive.
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