With 34.82 million tickets sold since the beginning of the year, the French box-office is up 4.8% on 2003 according to figures released by the CNC this week.

February saw a rise of 3.2% over 2003 for 19.5 million admissions. However, French films' market share is down to 39.3% compared with 41.4% last year. Early 2003 benefited from the high-grossing Taxi 3 while 2004 has so far suffered disappointments in terms of French film. Although Mars Distribution's Podium and Europa Corp's Crimson Rivers sequel have been pulling down strong numbers in the past few weeks, films like Blueberry and RRRrrrr!!! have underperformed.

American films are up with 49.8% of the market as compared to 41.4% last year thanks to The Return Of The King, Finding Nemo, The Last Samurai and Brother Bear.