26/07/2002

The interpretation of the box office figures which led to the media talking of a crash in audiences, was inaccurate, according to ANEC, the cinema owners´ association. «The reduction in takings, was actually a rise of 62% over the figures for the same weekend last year (July 20-22, 2001) in the samples released by Cinetel». From May 31-21 July 2002, there were 7, 457,000 tickets sold in cinemas represented by Cinetel (1,973 screens) compared with 5,000,000 in the period from June 1- July 22 in 2001 (1,712 screens). Therefore there have been almost 2.5million more tickets sold, a percentage increase of 48%. Out of the 329 cities which are part of the survey, 276 showed an increase of 36% in ticket sales.
The massive and steady flow of audiences to arenas and seasonal events have not been mentioned in the Cinetel figures. Spider-Man reached fourth place in the films of the winter season with box office takings of €17,414,000 and other blockbusters also did well, including Star Wars - Episode II, Lilo & Stitch, Scooby Doo, Resident Evil, The Mothman Prophecies, Under Court Martial , 40 days & 40 nights, Windtalkers, as well as Casomai, which has been out for 12 weeks and is still in the top 10 of most popular films.