25/11/2005

Christmas has come early for UK exhibitors, distributors and producers. As many as 3.8m people in the UK and Ireland went to the cinema over the last weekend, a record not seen since the mid-1980s according to the UK Film Distributors Association (FDA) who spoke to the BBC. And for once, UK films –and UK co-productions- take the lion share of the market with Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire selling as many as 3m tickets on its own.
The fourth film in the series is already positioned in the top ten of the year after last weekend’s three day opening which broke all records with a £14.9m (€ 21.8m) gross. But two other UK family films were in the top 5 last weekend: Working Title’s Nanny McPhee which sold 127.500 tickets and reached £15,3m (€ 22.4m) gross in five weeks, and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of The Were-Rabbit [+see also:
trailer
film profile] which was seen by another 100,000 people last weekend and is now the third highest film in gross earnings to date with over £31m (€ 45m).

Non-family UK titles such as The Constant Gardener [+see also:
film review
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film profile] also proved successful, taking the third position at the local chart with a total gross of £2.3m (€ 3.7m) in only 2 weeks, and the UK period piece The Libertine [+see also:
trailer
film profile] starring Johnny Depp took the 8th rank with a total gross of £278.482 (€ 407.189) for Entertainment Film Distributors.
Among the non-UK films holding well at the UK box office, French film The Beat That My Heart Skipped [+see also:
trailer
film profile] released by Artificial Eye was the sixth most popular film in London followed by the new opener Norwegian/US co-production Factotum [+see also:
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film profile] released by Icon.

Thanks to a strong October - up 7.3% from 2004 with a total admission of 15.6m according to the Cinema Advertising Association- November figures set to be extremely positive as well as December with future blockbusters like The Chronicles of Narnia opening on December 8 and King Kong the following week, the downturn in UK admissions will not be as dramatic as expected. So far, a 6% decrease from 2004 has been registered with 161m admissions between January-October 2005…nothing compared to the 20% fall in Germany or France.