With the figures for the first half of 2020 in, the central German film funding body FFA presents the interim status of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the German film industry. After the attendance and sales results in January (10.6 million / €93.6 million) and February (10.1 million / €82.5 million) were on par with the previous year, from mid-March the industry experienced an unprecedented slump with cinema closings and production standstill due to the lockdown. From the middle of May, a few theatres opened under strict distancing and hygiene rules. Due to the required low occupancy rates,
profitable operations were nearly impossible.
In addition, the releases of many films were postponed.
In the first half of 2020, cinema attendance fell by 52%
to 26 million tickets sold compared to the same period in the previous year, and cinema sales dropped by 52% to €220 million.
The fact that tickets were sold at all between March and June was due to the drive-in cinemas, which experienced an unprecedented boom. With just under 1.5 million tickets and €14 million in sales, 458 drive-in theaters generated 6.5& of the significantly shrunken overall market. For comparison: In 2019, the FFA recorded only 21 drive-in cinemas nationwide, which contributed 0.2 percent to the overall market with around 110,000 tickets and €900,000 in sales.
At first glance, the key figures of the cinema industry compared to the previous year – number of locations, cinema companies, theatres, screens and seats – do not show that the industry is going through its biggest crisis since the founding of the Federal Republic with almost three months of closures and persistently high fixed costs. Although the number of screens decreased slightly by 0.6 percent to 4,929 (Dec. 2019: 4,961), the number of theatres to 1,734 (Dec. 2019: 1,734) and the number of cinema companies remained constant at 947 (Dec. 2019: 946).
“Unfortunately, these numbers are deceptive,” explains FFA chair Peter Dinges. “Many cinema operators are currently struggling to survive. However,
the real impact of the pandemic on the cinema landscape will only become apparent in the coming months.”
The most popular films in the first half of 2020 were the action film “Bad Boys for Life,” which started in January (1.8 million viewers), and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” which was launched in 2019 (1.5 million viewers since 1 Jan 2020) and the Berlin comedy “Nightlife,” which was released in February (1.3 million viewers). In the first six months,
US theatrical films recorded a total of 12.2 million viewers, a decrease of 57 percent.
The downturn for German film was similar, if not quite as severe. A total of 9 million tickets were sold for German films in the first half of 2020, around 25% fewer than in the same period the previous year.
The German market share was 34& – an increase of around 11 percentage points compared to the same period in the previous year. The most popular German films besides “Nightlife” by Simon Verhoeven were the family film that opened for Christmas 2019, “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit” by Caroline Link (0.7 million viewers since 1 Jan 2020), and Dani Levy’s “The Kangaroo Chronicles” (0.7 million viewers).
“Until the lockdown, the cinemas had a very good run and the programs at the drive-in cinemas in many places relied on the potential of German productions in particular,” explains Peter Dinges.
“This demonstrates that people still want to go to the movies as soon as there is any opportunity to see films on the big screen. I’m convinced that the upcoming films, including many appealing German and European productions, will draw audiences back to the cinemas – nationwide and hopefully in many open theatres.”
To mitigate the crisis and help the cinema market recover in the second half of the year, the federal and provincial governments and film subsidies have launched numerous funding initiatives and measures to support production, cinemas and distributors in recent months.
Hopes are high for a slow and gradual recovery of the cinema industry. These hopes seem justified as shown, among others, by the results of the first US film with blockbuster potential to come to German cinemas after the lockdown. On its first weekend at the beginning of September, “Tenet” opened with almost 320,000 viewers and generated an increase in sales of over 160 percent. Other promising films are scheduled to open in the fall, including German productions such as the bestseller adaptation “Dragon Rider,” the adventure film “Jim Knopf und die Wilde 13” and the turbulent feel-good comedy “Es ist zu deinem Besten.”
source: FFA
image: ZDF Covid comedy series "Drinnen - Im Internet sind alle gleich": Charlotte (Lavinia Wilson) is only connected to friends and family (and co-actors) via the Internet. courtesy
ZDF/btf
