To £1Bn... and beyond

THE UK AND IRISH box-office is set to exceed £1bn by the end of the year — if you were part of the audience at the recent Distributor Slate Days, held in London on the 20-21 September at Picturehouse Central that is the message you will have heard from Lucy Jones at ComScore. By any measure, that’s a pretty positive outlook on the state of the cinema sector in our first post-pandemic year.

The estimate from Gower Street’s weekly State of the Market report suggests that we can expect to see a final Q4 boost as cinemas start screening the autumn and winter slates, seeing the year out on a much needed high.

Hearts [and tills] will have been warmed by recent headlines and comment such as this: “by the end of July, we had already surpassed the total for 2021” and “Top Gun: Maverick debuted at No1 with £15.9m — the highest ever opening for Tom Cruise”.

From home soil, we have seen both Belfast and Downton Abbey: A New Era as the highest grossing British titles of the year. Event cinema has also paid dividends this year, notably with Prima Facie, starring Jodie Comer. It debuted with £1.4m and went on to £4.7m, becoming the highest-grossing Event Cinema release of all time. There is plenty to look forward to as well, not least the latest outing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — Wakanda Forever — in November, and, of course, Avatar: The Way of Water in December.

That represents some compelling content to get your audiences firmly into their seatsthis Christmas. Roll on the big releases!

Data kindly provided by ComScore

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