20/07/2007

After the opening of the latest of its new generation film complexes, Kinepolis Ostende (see news), the Kinepolis Group has published its results for the first quarter of 2007.

The group attracted 10.7m filmgoers between January and the end of June. These figures – which take into account results achieved by the exhibitor cinemas in Belgium and Europe – represent a 7% decrease from last year’s figures.

The poor results are being put down to warmer than expected weather in the second half of the year and less attractive releases. While in France – thanks to the releases of Taxi 4 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and La Vie en Rose [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – results have been quite good and the figures got a boost with the release of the Spiderman, Oceans 13, Pirates of the Caribbean and Shrek franchises. However, the franchises failed to attract enough filmgoers to substantially increase numbers.

It remains to be seen whether the latest Harry Potter [+see also:
trailer
film profile] film and other summer titles, such as The Simpsons Movie, Transformers, Ratatouille and Fantastic Four 2, will send crowds flocking once again to cinemas.

(Translated from French)