07/01/2013 - Up to 17.9% of box office receipts in Spain went to national productions, for which total receipts reached a record €106m

The Spanish film sector has kicked off 2013 with the good news of great box office results for national productions in 2012. The latter's market share according to box office takings reached 17.9%, the highest in the last 27 years, with record total earnings. These results are mainly due to excellent takings for The Impossible [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juan Antonio Bayona
film profile] and Tad, the Lost Explorer [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in October and November, when the market share rose to 40.4%, with a share of 55.6% in October.

The great architects of this success were The Impossible and Tad, the Lost Explorer, as mentioned above, as well as romantic comedy Tengo ganas de ti [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Their takings reached €40.5m, €18m, and €12m respectively. In 2012, Spanish films made a grand total of €106m, the best takings in the history of Spanish cinema, even better than in 2009, the year of Agora [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Unit 211 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniel Monzón
film profile], when they reached €104m.

In 2012, there was also a tendency of decrease in the number of Spanish films in production. After a decrease by 15% in 2011 compared to 2010, last year saw 163 films in production, which was a drop by 5%.

Most recently, a single production brought in a great part of the takings for Spanish film production. As in the past with The Orphanage [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Torrente 4 [+see also:
trailer
film profile], and Agora, this year the driving force was The Impossible (up to 38% of total takings were due to J. A. Bayona’s film). This aspect, which shows a lack of mid-range films capable of achieving consistently good results and is, according to the sector’s analysts, one of the Spanish film sector's weak points, was however downplayed by Pedro Pérez, president of producer federation FAPAE: “Like each year and for films from all countries, some films represent a driving force and help to achieve better box office results.”  

In 2012, many less productions did better than €2m in takings, which shows that box office results were mainly concentrated on the three titles mentioned above. While in 2011 up to 17 films made more than €2m, in 2012 only eight did.

(Translated from Spanish)