29/10/2003

Buena Vista UK’s strong marketing campaign on the local comedy Calendar Girls has paid off, as the film is one of the rare British films to top the local chart with over £10m for the whole month of September.

Nigel Cole’s film starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters finally managed to knock Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl from the Number One position, although the adventure film with Johnny Depp still took the number two slot, with a total of £26m gross, making it the third biggest film of the year so far.
On the whole, September was up 0.9% on the same month in 2002, with 2.5m admissions a week, and a total of 10.7m cinema tickets sold in September.
“September was another good month with a year-on-year increase in admissions. This was down to film products attracting an increasingly broad audience with the strong performance of Calendar Girls, the widespread box office growth of Pirates of The Caribbean and the ongoing success of American Pie 3” said Debbie Chalet, Head of the Cinema Advertising Association.
Another strong September performer was the Irish co-production Intermission by John Crowley, which grossed over £1m.

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