Considerably fewer viewers and lower sales – but German films are gaining, reported central German film promoter FFA recently.
From the beginning of January until the end of June 2018, a total of 51 million tickets were purchased for motion pictures in Germany, that’s 9.2 million fewer (15.2%) than in the corresponding period of the previous year. Total sales dropped by 15.3 percent to 439.1 million euros (518.5 million).
German films had a positive development countering this trend.
With 11.3 million tickets sold, German productions attracted more viewers to the cinemas than in the first six months of the previous year (10.6 million), thus increasing their market share from 18.2 to 22.4 percent. At the same time, the number of theatres, with 4,812 screens, was at the highest in ten years and the number of locations (903), cinema enterprises (1,176) and venues (1,671) rose again as well.
The most successful film of the first half-year was the hero-action movie AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR with 3.3 million viewers.
There were also three German million-viewer movies among the top ten: JIM BUTTON AND LUKE THE ENGINE DRIVER (1.6 million), THE LITTLE WITCH (1.5 million) and THIS CRAZY HEART (1.3 million). The number of film releases again dropped in the first half-year; a total of 281 (previous year 298) new films opened in the cinemas, 17 fewer than in the first half of 2017.
The biggest share of new releases were German films with 119 (previous year 120) releases and US productions with 70 (87) premieres.
FFA board member Peter Dinges said,
“Unfortunately, the upward trend of the previous year did not continue. The cinema business thrives on the appeal of the films offered, which have so far not been huge successes. In addition, we had a summer of the century and a football World Cup during which the distributors hold back with big movie launches anyway. So it’s all the more gratifying to see that German films have had such positive development. I am particularly pleased that this also applies to the entrepreneurial spirit of the cinema operators. Given the strong movie releases in the second half of the year, I’m optimistic that we can still expect a noticeable increase in the number of viewers.”
Premieres scheduled for the coming weeks include the two German heavyweights Til Schweiger and Matthias Schweighöfer who will be seen soon in KLASSENTREFFEN 1.0 - DIE UNGLAUBLICHE REISE DER SILBERRÜCKEN and 100 DINGE as well as Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s NEVER LOOK AWAY, which was entered and is premiering at the Venice Film Festival and going to TIFF. There will also be premieres by and with Detlev Buck (ASPHALTGORILLAS, WUFF), Sebastian Schipper (ROADS), Lars Eidinger (25KM/H), Michael Bully Herbig (BALLON) as well as Bruno Ganz (THE TOBACCONIST).
source: FFA
image: Lars Eidinger and Bjarne Mädel in the upcoming 25KM/H
