29/07/2002

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.