12/10/2011

Thanks to four consecutive months of rising figures and a September with 11.4m viewers (+7.5%), audience figures in French theatres since the start of 2011 have almost returned to the level for the same period in 2010, making up for a weak start to the year. According to estimates by the National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC), the total so far for 2011 stood at 146.50m admissions on September 30, i.e. 2.2% less than in the first three quarters of 2010.

For the first nine months of the year, the market share for French films is estimated at 33.4% compared to 51.3% for US productions and 16.1% for features from other countries.

In the current box-office charts, Yann Samuell’s War of the Buttons [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Christophe Barratier’s War of the Buttons [+see also:
trailer
film profile] [pictured] continue to battle it out for audiences with, respectively, 1.24m admissions (in 26 days – UGC Distribution) and 1.07m admissions (in 19 days – Mars Distribution), showing extraordinary stability (-0% and -4% in the latest weekly rankings).

Nanni Moretti’s We Have A Pope [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nanni Moretti
film profile] is also showing impressive staying power at -2% in its fifth week on release and a total of 574,000 admissions (distributed by Le Pacte), while Rémi Bezançon’s A Happy Event [+see also:
trailer
interview: Rémi Bezançon
film profile] is doing well with 317,000 viewers in 11 days (distributed by Gaumont).

In terms of box-office starts, Eric Lavaine’s comedy Welcome Aboard [+see also:
trailer
film profile] dominates in gross figures with 486,000 admissions in five days on a 525-print run (Pathé Films) and Julie Delpy’s Skylab [+see also:
trailer
film profile] has clocked up 106,000 admissions on 184 prints (Mars Distribution). However, Danish helmer Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive is creating the real splash with almost 395,000 admissions on 246 prints released through Wild Side Films and Le Pacte.

(Translated from French)