Italian audiences are gradually making their way back to the big screen. It was in a spirit of cautious optimism that Cinetel’s 2022 data was presented at the Roman headquarters of ANICA – the Italian Association of Film, Audiovisual and Digital Industries yesterday, revealing the state of health of the Italian film market based on tickets sold in cinemas. Compared to 2021, a year in which cinemas were closed until 26 April on account of the pandemic, 2022 saw revenue and admissions rise by 81% and 79.6% respectively, amounting to €306,622,567 in box office takings and 44,535,891 viewers in cinemas. Obviously, these numbers are still a far cry from those achieved pre-Covid; the hoped-for threshold of 50 million admissions wasn’t reached and the number of tickets sold fell by half, more or less, compared to pre-pandemic times: going by average results in the 2017-2019 period, there’s been a 48.2% drop in takings and a 51.6% fall in admissions.

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The box office results achieved by Italian productions (including co-productions) are nonetheless significant, accounting for 19.7% of earnings and 21.2% of admissions in Italy in 2022, with box office takings of €60.3m and 9.4 million admissions (in line with the 2017-2019 average: 20.6% of revenue and 21% of admissions).

498 new films were distributed in cinemas in 2022 (141 more than in 2021, 43 less on average than in 2017-2019), 251 of which were Italian productions or co-productions (95 more than in 2021; 30 more on average than in 2017-2019), equating to 50.4% of the overall number. The year also saw the cinema release of 126 new complementary content forms (events, special editions, re-releases), representing total earnings of €11m and 1.4 million admissions.

“To end on the subject of release windows, establishing tax credit for operational costs and investment in cinemas, together with the incentives which are set to be introduced for film launch costs”, are now the priorities identified by Mario Lorini, president of ANEC – the Italian Association of Cinema Operators, in addition to “immediately getting to work on using all possible resources for promoting Italian film and aiming for the best quality possible when it comes to works destined for cinemas, and for even more dynamic and consistent distribution throughout the year”.

As for the country-by-country breakdown, American cinema took first place in 2022 with €179,273,304 of total earnings (58.5% of box office revenue; up 82.7% on 2021; down 51.6% on the 2017-2019 average) and 24,983,217 admissions. After the Italian and American markets came British cinema (€34m at the box office, equating to 11.1% of the market share) and French production (€8.6m at the box office; in other words, 2.8% of the market share). The highest revenue earned by a national production to 31 December 2022 (and ranking 13^th place overall) was recorded by Strangeness [+lee también:
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“2023 looks set to be an abundant year, in terms of big international titles but also national titles, and the overall film offering promises to be varied and to cover all market and audience segments”, stressed Luigi Lonigro, president of ANICA’s Association of Film Editors and Distributors, and director of 01 Distribution, “as such, all our expectations are very high and we expect 2023 to be a year of strong growth compared to 2022”.