07/11/2002 - French film industry giant reports 1st semester 2002 losses of Euros 9.3 million

Gaumont reported a disappointing first semester of 2002 with losses standing at Euros 9.3 million.
Gaumont is France’s biggest film company, with interests in the production, distribution and exhibition sectors. Results for the first half of 2002 were significantly lower than those reported for the same period last year when Gaumont made a profit of Euros 62.9 million.
The reasons ? Last year, some five million tickets were sold to Les Visiteurs en Amérique and Le Placard (The Closet) while this year’s tentpole release, Le Raid by Djamel Bensalah, only managed to sell 1.4 million tickets.
Commenting these results, a spokesperson for Gaumont underlined that « 2002 was a year of transition where both investments and the number of films made were small »:Euros 17.5 million compared to Euros 41.3 million posted on 30 June 2001. He added that Gaumont had recently closed a number of important international sales deals for La Mentale directed by Manuel Boursinhac and starring Samuel Le Bihan and Sami Naceri (and released in France on 23 October), that would contribute to improving Gaumont’s financial situation for 2002. Gaumont also has a number of films either in production, like Michel Boujenah’s Père et fils, or scheduled to go into production like Claude Zidi’s Super Ripoux starring Philippe Noiret and Thierry Lhermitte, scheduled for January 2003, that have excellent box office potential.

(Translated from French)