Best first semester in five years
In the first semester of 2009, German theatres achieved the best results in five years. This shows not only that the box office is unaffected by the present economic situation but that cinema-going is even more popular in times of crisis.
With 62.78m admissions and €409.54m in takings (according to Nielsen EDI), the good turnover recorded for the same period in 2006 was surpassed by 8.5%. Compared to the first semester of 2008, earnings rose by 18.5% and admissions by 4.4m.
Johannes Klingsporn, director of the Federation of Exhibitors, remarked that the interesting point about these excellent results is that they are not down to one single mega-production, but "are spread out among many films of very different genres".
The biggest hit of the first semester was Hollywood title Angels & Demons (4,254,350 admissions in six months). The best-performing German film was Gernot Roll and Mario Barth’s comedy Männersache (currently in ninth position in this year’s box office rankings with over 1,830,000 admissions since its release on March 19).
This year’s second semester also looks promising. July has been a successful month with 5.6m admissions for Ice Age 3 (in just 19 days), while the latest Harry Potter [+see also:
trailer
film profile] movie has attracted over 2.2m viewers in its first weekend on release.
(Translated from French)
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