It is the film that just keeps on delivering in Italy. Paola Cortellesi’s smash hit There’s Still Tomorrow (C’è Ancora Domani) returned to cinemas in Italy for International Women’s Day on March 8, taking €137,000 to finish in second place at the box office behind Dune: Part Two.
The post-war comedy drama has now taken $39.8m (€36.6m) since its release by Vision Distribution on October 26, 2023, after its premiere opening the Rome Film Festival. There’s Still Tomorrow was the top film at the Italian box office in 2023, ahead of Barbie (€32.1m) and Oppenheimer (€27.9m). It is also the first Italian film to take more than €10m since Italian cinemas reopened following the Covid-19 lockdown.
There’s Still Tomorrow has played an important part in helping the post-pandemic recovery of the Italian box office, which grew by 62% in 2023 to hit €495m. In particular, it has helped to bring back older audiences to Italian cinemas. According to Vision Distribution, 24% of the recorded audience of the film is aged over 60, 21% between 50 and 59, 19% is between 35 and 49, 18% is between 25 and 34, 13% is between 15 and 24, 4% is aged below 24.
The recovery has continued into 2024; attendance is 23% higher for the January-February period than 2023.
Unlikely story
There’s Still Tomorrow’s is an unlikely success story in Italy and many credit an astute marketing campaign for driving up its box office. Produced by Wildside and distributed by Vision, There is Still Tomorrow was a tough sell: a black and white comedy drama set in 1946, shot to resemble Italian neorealism films, telling a story of domestic abuse and the struggle of a mother to create a better future for her daughter.
The film does not tick any of the typical boxes for Italian cinema success but one: its lead actress. As well as directing and writingThere’s Still Tomorrow, Cortellesi also stars in the film. As an actress she is popular with audiences thanks to roles in comedies such as Like A Cat On The Highway and its sequel, which both grossed €9.8m in 2017 and 2021. Those films were also written by Cortellesi (together with Furio Andretti and Giulia Calenda) and directed by her husband Riccardo Milani.
The familiarity of Cortellesi to the traditional comedy audience helped attract in the older demographic, draw them from their houess and ultimately turn the film into an event.
Cortellesi has often spoken about the difficulties of establishing herself as a writer and director in the male dominated Italian industry; There’s Still Tomorrow marked her directorial debut.
Reflecting on the marketing strategy for the film, Laura Mirabella, head marketing officer at Vision, says the primary target were women. “We worked to bring them first to the theatres and I think this was crucial…a lot of our work went into social media and spreading different clips of the movie. As a result, a large part of that early audience was also under 35 years of age”.
Ultimately, 58% of the film’s audience were women; most men started to buy tickets on the third weekend.
This highlights the unusual, non-linear progression that There’s Still Tomorrow has experienced at the box office: it scored a €1.6m opening weekend, then went on to gross €5.6m more in its second (helped by a November bank holiday). The film then took €6m in its third weekend and continued to gross €6m for the following two weekends. Only on its sixth weekend of release did it drop, by 50%. Then came Christmas and with it four more weeks taking between €1.5m and €1.8m.
Word of mouth
Word of mouth was a key driver thanks to an unconventional marketing push by Vision and the director herself. Cortellesi travelled to theatres around the country to introduce the film to audiences and hold Q&As. “Paola’s availability was crucial,” says Mirabella. “Those who don’t live in big cities aren’t used to meeting talents, in some towns we had sell-outs and people who queued outside. This created a wave that drove the word of mouth and spread it for many days after the event, bringing in more people.”
The poster choice was also important to the film’s success, Mirabella believes. The main poster image is taken from a still of the movie that features Cortellesi standing among other women in a serious pose unlike the comedies for which she is known. “It’s the most important scene,” says Mirabella. “That is the image that represents the whole film. But we knew it was a tough sell, so we softened its gravitas with a modern pink tone for the title and the frame, in order to suggest it’s both a period piece and a pop movie.”
Vision also used many other images in different posters around Italian cities. “This showed this movie is not one thing but has many different aspects from the romantic to the comedian to the dramatic,” says Mirabella.
Vision Distribution was co-created in 2016 by Sky, which holds the majority stake, and five Italian production companies - Cattleya, Lucisano, Wildside, Indiana and Palomar. All were dissatisfied with Italian film distribution and sought to apply marketing strategies from other markets to the cinema business. Mirabella is an engineer by training who has previously worked in the mobile phone, music and streaming industries. She says Vision’s approach is always to tailor each campaign: “It’s a much bigger effort this way, and very time consuming. We start from scratch for each film.”
A previous Vision success story was the distribution of Cannes competition title The Eight Mountains, released six months after the festival, to an unexpected €6m in 2022.
Looking ahead, Vision itself is set for change. In a surprise move Vision’s CEO Massimiliano Orfei and director of theatrical distribution Davide Novelli left the company at the end of December. On March 1, a new CEO stepped in, Massimo Proietti, previously marketing director and the deputy managing director at Universal Italy. After the success of There’s Still Tomorrow, it is a tough act to follow.
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