Local comedies bolster Spanish box office as industry looks with confidence to year ahead

Homegrown hits led by A Moroccan Affair and Championext, an explosion of comedies and the solid performance of several European indies have helped the Spanish box office to withstand the lack of US releases following the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes last year.

Local productions were the highest grossing independent films at the Spanish box office in the year ending February 2024, with Álvaro Fernández Armero’s A Moroccan Affair at the top of the list.

The 2023 Spanish box office total was €504 million, with 77.8 million tickets sold, representing a 26% increase on 2022, according to Comscore. 

The two biggest Spanish films are both part of existing franchises. Produced by Telecinco Cinema and Lazona, and sold by Filmax, A Moroccan Affair is the third part of the most successful Spanish comedy franchise ever, which started with Spanish Affair. A Moroccan Affair sold 1.8 million tickets in Spain and grossed €12.5 million. The two previous instalments took €71.4 million and €37 million respectively in 2014 and 2015.

The second highest-grossing Spanish film in 2023 was Javier Fesser’s comedy Championext, from Morena Films. The sequel to 2018’s Champions, it took €11.4 million. In Spain, both Championext and A Moroccan Affair were released by Universal.

The other Spanish comedies to tickle Spanish audiences included Sony Pictures Entertainment Iberia’s Vacaciones De Verano (€7.1 million), directed by Santiago Segura; Víctor García León’s ¡Vaya vacaciones!, another Universal release (€4.6 million); and Lucía Alemany’s Mari(dos) (€3.9 million), released by Disney. 

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Meanwhile, Spanish production-distribution outfit A Contracorriente Films ha released three films in the past 12 months that have performed well: Joaquín Mazón’s The Night My Dad Saved Christmas (€3.9 million), a Spanish comedy asking what would happen if Santa Claus didn’t make his Christmas Eve appointments, produced by Bowfinger International Picture; Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s As Bestas (€2.6 million), a Spanish thriller loosely inspired by real events involving a Dutch couple in Santoalla, a semi-abandoned hamlet of the Spanish municipality of Petín, from 2010 to 2014; and Mexican director Alejandro Monteverde’s Sound Of Freedom (€2.9 million) an English-language US Christian thriller starring Jim Caviezel and Mira Sorvino, for which Spain was its biggest European market ahead of the UK (€2.5 million), France (€1.7 million) and Germany (€625,000).

Further independent films to perform well in Spain in the last include Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner and awards season favourite Anatomy Of A Fall, grossed €2.3m, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest (€900,000) and Celine Song’s Past Lives (€1.3 million). All were released by Elastica Films.

Anatomy Of A Fall was the most successful French film released in Spain last year, and has outgrossed the two most recent Palme d’Or winners Triangle Of Sadness (€1.1m) and Titane (€212,000) by some margin.

The ‘Senior Tuesdays’ campaign was launched in July 2023 by the Ministry of Culture’s to encourage people over 65 to buy tickets for €2 on Tuesdays in 420 participating cinemas. One film to benefit was Wanda Films’ release of Patricia Font’s Spanish arthouse title The Teacher Who Promised The Sea. The Spanish Civil War drama has so far grossed €1.7 million.

According to Spanish exhibitors federation FECE, Napoleon, Killers Of The Flower Moon, A Moroccan Affair, Oppenheimer and Championext have been the most popular films with the over 65s demographic in the past year.

The highest-grossing Spanish genre film in 2023 was Víctor García’s The Communion Girl, which grossed over €1.4 million for XX, while exhibitors are encouraged by the number of younger audiences going to see drama titles including Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers (€1.6 million) and Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days (€1.2 million).

Films to look out for

The personal touch is helping to build audience awareness of The Blue Star, the debut feature from Javier Macipe. Word-of-mouth and an extensive, hands-on campaign from its director, presented his film in almost all Spanish theatres where it played, have driven the film to a gross of €255,000 to date.

Distributed by Wanda and sold by Film Factory, The Blue Star was released on 88 screens and registered the fifth-highest box office on its opening weekend of February 23-25.

Exhibitors are now optimistic for Salvador Simó and Jian-Ping Li’s Dragonkeeper, the Spain-China feature animation that opening the Malaga Film Festival, and comedies Joaquín Mazón’s Uncle Trouble, David Galán Galindo’s Matusalén, Nacho García Velilla’s Menudas Piezas, and romantic comedy Un Hipster En La España Vacía — the much-awaited film from Emilio Martínez Lázaro, the director of Spanish Affair and Spanish Affair 2. All are playing at this month’s Malaga Film Festival.

Spain Top 20, 2023

Courtesy of Comscore

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