Preliminary box office figures released Tuesday show a strong uptick in cinema admissions across Europe last year, though ticket sales are still well below pre-pandemic figures.
The European Audiovisual Observatory estimates 383.2 million movie tickets were sold across the European Union and the U.K. in 2021. That’s 83.8 million more than over the same period in 2020, a 28 percent jump.
It’s a hopeful sign for Europe’s battered exhibition industry, which saw box office plunge as COVID-19 lockdown orders shuttered cinemas across the continent. Admissions in the EU and U.K. fell a steep 70 percent in 2020 and admissions for 2021 were still 61.9 percent below pre-pandemic figures from 2019, when cinema attendance in the EU and U.K. topped 1 billion admissions.
There were signs of recovery in most major European markets, but still significant differences from country to country. Of the big territories, the U.K. saw the biggest bounce-back, with admissions jumping by 68.3 percent, or 30 million tickets, to 74 million admissions last year, helped by the blockbuster success of James Bond film No Time to Die. Russia, where a majority of cinemas remained open for most of the year, recorded by far the largest admissions in Europe in 2021, with 145.7 million tickets sold, a 64.2 percent increase on 2020.
Italy was the only major European territory to see a box office decline last year, with ticket sales dropping 12.2 percent to 26.6 million.
It appears it was the return of studio blockbusters that brought European audiences back to cinemas, with No Time to Die, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dune, and Fast & Furious 9 – The Fast Saga the main drivers of last year’s recovery.
Source: Hollywood
