Nordic box office reports healthy 2015

The strong performance is set to continue in early 2016 with hot new releases going strong such as Christmas Day opener A Man Called Ove and Thomas Vinterberg’s Berlinale Competitor The Commune, which opened in Denmark yesterday (Jan 14).

DENMARK

The Danish box office had a boom year, up 15% on 2014 for admissions of 14.2 million. This marks the second-highest number since 1982.

Local films’ admissions were up to 4.2 million from 3.3 million in 2014, with a market share of 29.7% compared to 27% in 2014. This was the second-best market share for Danish film since 1978.

The top Danish film was Mikkel Norgaard’s comedy sequel Klown Forever, which sold 512,056 tickets. Norgaard is on a hot streak as the top Danish director three years running, after making the number one thrillers The Absent One and The Keeper Of Lost Causes in 2014 and 2013. However, the Klown sequel isn’t coming close to the original film’s 855,000 admissions.

Spectre topped the box office chart for 2015 on 897,834 admissions.

Other Danish productions in the top 10 are Anders Thomas Jensen’s absurdist dark comedy Men & Chicken at number nine and family film My Canadian Adventure at number 10.

Martin Zandvliet’s Land of Mine, a Toronto hit that could figure in the 2017 awards season, has sold 129,221 tickets after five weeks on release and should still have life in its run into 2016.

(Final numbers for 2015 are confirmed in March).

FINLAND

Finland also had a record-breaking 2015, with 2.6 million admissions for 36 domestic films (besting the previous record of 2.4 million in 2012).

Market share for domestic films hit 29%, up 2% from 2014.

Total admissions of 8.8 million were up 19% from 2014, with the 8 million mark passed only for the second time this century.

The health of the industry is helped by digitization – the number of screens in Finland has increased to over 300 for the first time in six years. 

Local films in the overall top 10 were comedy Reunion (505,376 admissions), Lapland Odyssey 2, Ricky Rapper and the Scrooge of Seville, war drama The Midwife, and Jill and Joy’s Winter.

The most popular Finnish documentary of the year was global motherhood story Mother’s Wish by Joonas Berghäll (11,285 admissions).

ICELAND

Icelandic cinema box office revenues in 2015 rose to $11.9m (ISK 1,551,569,621) an increase of 4.44% from 2014, with audience numbers up 2.8% to 1.38 million. It marks the first time admissions have increased since 2009.

Four films had more than 50,000 admissions: local hero Baltasar Kormakur’s mountaineering epic Everest (which topped the local chart for the year on $1.5m (ISK89m); Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which is still on release after its Dec 18 launch saw the highest revenues in Icelandic cinema history; Spectre and Minions.

There were 16 Icelandic productions released, up from nine in 2014, as the 2015 numbers now include screenings at Reykjavik’s independent cinema, Bio Paradis.

But overall revenues from Icelandic films fell to $570,000 (ISK 73.8m), down 63% from 2014’s $1.5m (197m), when there was a huge Icelandic hit, Baldvin Z’s Life In A Fishbowl.

In 2015, Icelandic films’ market share was 4.8%, down from 13.3% in 2014 but up from 3.6% in 2013.

The top-grossing Icelandic film in 2015 was Cannes prizewinner Rams, which ranks 14th for the year, earning $223,000 (ISK29m). The film is still in cinemas after 32 weeks of release.

Amongst foreign titles, French comedy Serial (Bad) Weddings performed well, earning $185,000 (ISK 24m) and 19th position for the year.

Average ticket prices reached $8.66 (ISK 1,123), up 1.6% from 2014.

NORWAY

Norway’s box office was up 8.5% on 2014, for a total of 12 million admissions, the third best for the past decade.

It was Scandinavia’s first disaster film, Roar Uthaug’s The Wave, that led the charge earning the top place at the overall box office. It became the seventh most popular film ever in Norwegian cinemas.

Admissions for Norwegian films fell by 9.1% from 2014, and local market share was 20.5%. 

The other local film cracking the top 10 was Valley of Knights: Mira’s Magical Christmas.

Christmas period admissions were very strong, helped by Star Wars: The Force Awakens as well as family film Solan & Ludvig - The Big Cheese Race (which even topped Star Wars over the holidays).

As of Jan 8, The Big Cheese Race had recorded 308,413 admissions (the first film in the series ended on 853,868).

There were a total of 37 Norwegian films released in 2015. Joachim Trier’s Louder Than Bombs, a Cannes Competition title, reached almost 20,000 admissions. 

SWEDEN

Screen will report separately on Sweden’s final box-office figures, which will be released in late January.