The French box office dropped 16.4% in February compared to the same month in 2023, according to the CNC, due to a lack of major US releases.
Some 28.6 million tickets have been sold in France since January 1, down 12.9% on the same period last year. In February, total admissions were 15m for a box office gross of €1.1bn based on an average ticket price of €7.20. In January, 13.5m tickets were sold for a gross of €97.5m.
February 2023 saw the release of French titles Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom via Pathé)and Alibi.com 2 for Studiocanal, while Disney’s Avatar: The Way Of Water was still drawing the crowds.
However February 2024 did end on a high note with Warner Bros’ release of Dune: Part Two on February 28. It boasted the best opening for a film so far this year in France with more than 166,000 tickets sold on opening day and 260,811 total including previews. The launch is even better than the original Dune that sold 115,000 tickets on its opening day in September of 2021 and just above Oppenheimer that sold 160,000 in July of 2023.
Eric Marti, general manager of Comscore France, tells Screen that 2024’s January and February figures “are right in the middle of what was a rough 2022 and a very encouraging 2023, so it can go either way, but it’s not irremediable.”
Top titles
Warner Bros’ Wonka, released mid-December, topped January’s box office charts with 1.2 million tickets sold for a total of 3.5 million. While a strong box office boost, Marti explains: “it’s not Avatar.” It was followed by local comedy Open Season (UGC), Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (Warner Bros.), then The Three Musketeers – Milady (Pathé).
The top films in February were local comedy Oh La La (Cocorico) (SND) with 1.3 million admissions, Bob Marley: One Love (Paramount) with 1.22 million, Oldies But Goodies starring Jean Reno with 882,000 for Apollo Films, and Gilles De Maistre’s animal adventure tale Autumn And The Black Jaguar with 647,000 for Studiocanal.
Arthouse titles have held their own during the quiet spell with The Zone Of Interest (Bac Films) selling more than 630,000 tickets and taking the fifth spot for February.
Poor Things (Disney) has sold more than 230,000 tickets since its mid-January release and was one of the highest grossing 10 films of January. Anatomy Of A Fall (Le Pacte), benefitted from what Comscore’s Eric Marti calls “a César affect,” selling nearly 258,000 tickets in February when it was named best film after winning six prizes at the César awards and bringing its total admissions to 1.7million.
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