17/07/2006

French cinemas did very well in the first semester of this year, garnering 103.16m admissions from January 1 through June 31 2006, up 18.5% on the same period in 2005.

According to estimates published by the Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC ), the first phase of the football World Cup did contribute to a slight fall in admissions, with only 12.04m tickets sold in June, down 1.9 % on June 2005. However, results for the first six months of 2006 made up for this, making it the semester with the highest admissions (104m) since 1982.

This upturn after a bad 2005 was accompanied by a market share domination of French films. French features represented 47.5% of admissions in the first semester of 2006, compared to 42.9% for the same period in 2005. Concurrently, admissions for US films fell from 47.6% in the first semester of 2005 to 43.1% from January 1 through June 30, 2006.

At the box office, the million admissions mark (and a €5.85m gross) was exceeded by 21 films, ten of which were French and all of which were released in the first semester. Along with Ice Age: The Meltdown (6.5m admissions), two French features figured in the top three: Patrice Leconte’s Les Bronzés 3 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] headed the list with 10.3 tickets sold (grossing approx. €60m) and Camping [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Fabien Onteniente came in at third place with 5m filmgoers (€29m gross).

Other films in the Top 10 include You Are So Beautiful [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Isabelle Mergault (5th place, 3.4m admissions), The Valet [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Francis Veber (6th place, 3m) and OSS 117 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Michel Hazanavicius (8th place, 2.2m).

(Translated from French)