05/04/2012 - With no new local successes such as Tilt, Bulgarian box office has dropped significantly

2011 brought an amazing 18% increase on 2010, but 2012numbers seem to contradict the happy trend: this year's first quarter shows a 14% decrease in terms of box office and a 16% decrease in terms of admissions.

During the first 12 weeks of this yearn 8.86 million tickets were sold in Bulgarian cinemas, according to numbers made public by the local distributors. The amount brought in was of approximately €3.7m, compared with the €4.27m total from 1.05 million admissions in 2011.

Some of 2012's biggest earners were , which attracted a handsome 30,000 spectators in the first week of the year (although released at the end of 2011), and John Carter - Disney's blockbuster was seen by more than 40,000 Bulgarians during its first week from release. Nevertheless, the local cinemas sold only an average of 73,875 tickets in the first quarter of 2012, compared with an average of 87,695 tickets for the same period of time in 2011.

A boost came then from The Tourist [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile], with almost 30,000 during its first week of release at the end of 2010, and The Mechanic, with almost the same numbers at the end of January. But the box-office king was Tilt (pictured), a domestic release seen by almost 34,000 Bulgarians during its first week of domestic screenings. The numbers decreased, but Viktor Chouchkov's drama spent as many as four weeks at the top of the box office before being dethroned by US animation Rango.

According to the National Film Centre, Bulgarian cinemas sold 4.72m tickets in 2011, an amazing step forward compared with the previous year (3.97m admissions). Three domestic releases showed up in the year's top ten grossers - Ilian Djevelekov’s Love.net, with 206,000 admissions, Ivan Mitov's Operation Shmenti Capelli (168,000 admissions) and Chouchkov's Tilt (145,000 admissions).