07/04/2014 - With an audience of 56.27 million for the first quarter, attendance levels are up 18.6% compared to the start of 2013

After four consecutive months of increased attendance levels compared to last year, the positive trend is clearly continuing in French movie theatres. Following figures of +19.4% in December, +22.9% in January and +20% in February, March racked up +14.1%, with 21.09 million admissions, according to estimates by the CNC. The combined total for the first quarter of 2014 therefore amounted to 56.27 million admissions, an 18.6% rise compared to 2013. Interestingly, this constitutes the second-best first quarter of the last decade in French cinemas.

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This revival is linked, among other things, to the very impressive market share of French productions (read the box-office news), at 46.7% for the first quarter (as against 40.5% for the first three months of 2013). American productions represented 40.2%, and feature films from other countries came in at 13% (as against 11.2% for the first quarter of 2013).

Over and above the quality selection of films distributed in theatres over the first three months of the year, the bright spell in attendance levels could also be linked to the new ticket cost of "4 euros for the under-14s" put in place on 1 January by the National Federation of French Cinemas (read the article). The CNC is planning to conduct some specific studies on box offices in order to determine the true impact of this measure.

(Translated from French)