The second year of the pandemic was particularly trying for cinemas all over Slovakia, as the movie theatres were shuttered for 176 days in total, as opposed to 116 days in 2020 (see the news). The total annual loss for 2021 owing to the closures is estimated at €16 million (read more, in Slovakian, here).

The biggest draw of 2021 turned out to be the animated children’s flick PAW Patrol: The Movie (106,038 admissions), followed by a domestic commercial sure-fire hit aimed at an adult audience – the romantic comedy Perfect Strangers by Zuzana Marianková (104,711 admissions). The latest James Bond epic, No Time to Die [+lee también:
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However, the new year has been kickstarted by the return of the web-slinging superhero in Spiderman: No Way Home. The film came in in first place as the most-visited movie of the week after it sold 28,800 admissions in its opening weekend. Spiderman: No Way Home retained its primacy in the Slovak dark rooms in the first quarter of the year, generating 149,313 admissions throughout its ten-week run. The latest instalment in the Marvel saga is not only the most-visited film, but also the only one to have surpassed the €1 million mark at the domestic box office, grossing €1,009,859 in the period between January and March.

Furthermore, it is the only US blockbuster in the list of the top three films that appealed to the local audience. Landing not far behind the €1 million threshold was the Slovak romantic flick And a Happy New Year 2, directed by Jakub Kroner, the sequel to the number-five film at the 2019 box office (which also ranked number two among the most-visited Slovak films that year – see the news), grossing €910,053 in the first three months of 2022 (with 137,517 admissions) after only three weeks in theatres. A regular top performer at the local box office, director Marta Ferencová (see the news) premiered her latest rom-com Till the Summer Comes, grossing €802,947 with it (121,799 admissions). Till the Summer Comes is based on the same formula as Ferencová’s previous two efforts, All or Nothing and Far Too Personal [+lee también:
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ficha de la película]: Ferencová at the helm, a script based on domestic scribe Evita Twardzik Urbaníková’s romantic story, production duties handled by Peter Núňez, of NUNEZ NFE, and Continental Film handling the release and promotion. And it’s obviously a formula that keeps on giving. Slovak rom-coms were followed by children- and family-orientated fare, such as Sing 2 (87,321 admissions) and Encanto (79,238 admissions).

However, such rom-coms managed to crush US blockbusters like The Batman (73,324 admissions), Uncharted (53,527 admissions) and Death on the Nile (24,543 admissions) in the first quarter of 2022, thus confirming that the pandemic did not alter the tastes of domestic theatregoers. National genre fare and children’s animation remain the most reliable box-office hits. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 dominated the first week of April at the Slovak box office (followed by Turning Red, with 19,405 admissions), and And a Happy New Year 2 added 13,151 weekly admissions to its total of 156,335 and was already past the €1 million mark, grossing a total of €1,041,327 after a four-week run. The Czech rom-com Heart to Heart by Martin Horský, the director of the huge Czech box-office hit Women on the Run [+lee también:
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The source of the data used in this article is the Union of Film Distributors Slovakia.