04/04/2003

Cinema admissions for February 2003 fell by more than a million, with respect to the same month in 2002, to 15.03 million (a weekly average of 3.76 million), according to the latest figures published by the Cinema Advertising Association - CAA.
Admissions fell by as much as 21 per cent on the same period last year, although February 2002 was the highest month on record since 1969, thanks to titles like Monsters Inc. and Ocean’s Eleven.
The CAA forecast a slight decline in cinema admissions for the start of the year, but was confident that figures would rise for the Summer, when a number of strong US titles are scheduled for release.
All of the top-performing titles of February 2003 were either US or US co-financed and they included Catch Me If You Can (£11.1m – Euros16m) Two Weeks Notice (£10.3m – Euros15m) and Chicago (Euros8.7m).
The UK box office fell by 5 per cent weekend (28-30 March) with respect to 21-23 March and by 53 per cent compared to the the same period in 2002. The reasons for this were nice weather, the start of the War in Iraq, few big opening titles and the fact that Easter falls two weeks later this year.
Amongst the European titles screening last weekend, The Pianist [+see also:
trailer
film profile], distributed by Pathé, improved its performance by 79 per cent and took a reported box office gross of £112,782 (Euros164,789). Following its three Oscar victories another 14 sites played the film (93 screens in total) which has taken over £1.8m (Euros26.3m) in 10 weeks. Michael Winterbottom’s In This World, which opened 28 March, gave ICA Distribution £12.153 (Euros17,757) from 5 screens and scored the highest per-screen average of any film on release.

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