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Box-office admissions in France totalled 9.5 million in September, down 6% from the same month in 2024, but up 6% from September 2023.
This was for a gross of approximately €70.1m, based on an average ticket price of €7.40.
It comes after a tough summer that saw admissions plummet by more than 29% year-on-year in August, 17% in July, nearly 20% in June and 29% in May.
Ticket sales year-on-year are down 14.4% to a total of 109.5 million (€810m) compared to 127.8 million (€946m) over the same period from 2023-2024.
The biggest title in September was Warner Bros’ horror title The Conjuring: Last Rites (1.9 million admissions of its 2 million total) released September 10 and Sony’s Japanese anime film Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (1.3 million of its 1.5 million total) released September 17.
Oliver Laxe’s Cannes premiere Sirât sold an impressive 468,000 tickets via Pyramide in September, and is now at nearly 560,000. The film is Spain’s entry to the international film Oscar and is also an indie hit in Spain.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another also managed to woo audiences with 435,000 admissions in its first week of release in cinemas for Warner Bros, and is now at 742,000.
Further Cannes releases to perform well included Antony Cordier’s Directors’ Fortnight title The Party’s Over that has sold 173,000 tickets to date for Tandem, Alex Lutz’s Connemara (Studiocanal) with 238,000 admissions after three weeks in theatres, and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (Memento) that added 171,000 admissions to bring its total to 417,000 since its August 20 release.
On October 2, Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning It Was Just An Accident, fresh off the announcement that it will represent France in the best international feature category at the Oscars, topped the day one box office with 20,500 admissions.
CNC exhibitor support
The steep decline in ticket sales in France is forcing the CNC to step in with emergency funding to help exhibitors pay distributors on time. The aim is to speed up the state aid reimbursement process for theatrical releases for the hardest-hit cinemas.
French distributors receive automatic support based on the number of ticket sales for each release on a regressive basis, whereby titles that perform better at the box office are granted less distribution aid by the CNC.
The action plan will allow certain cinemas to receive “exceptional advances” for such automatic state aid, without having to wait for the repayment of previously allocated advances.
Exhibitors, specifically of “small and medium-sized” movie theatres, a designation based on the organisation’s classification system, can make their case to receive aid through October 20 directly with the CNC. The organisation is creating a special committee to determine how the “exceptional increased advances” will be handed out and the amount for each recipient.
“We have assessed the situation and will take action,” CNC president Gaëtan Bruel told a room of anxious distributors and exhibitors at national exhibitors federation FNCF’s annual meeting in Normandy at the end of September.
He said the new aid scheme has already been activated. Suggesting “the crisis in cinema attendance is multifactorial,” Bruel highlighted “the ever-increasing proportion of occasional audiences,” namely those who go to cinemas to see one film in particular, who are replacing more frequent film-going “regulars” who are more inclined to simply go to the movies for the experience and are open to seeing a wide variety of films.
Another factor, Bruel lamented, is “competition from numerous screens, starting with smartphones, which have become the sole means of consuming audiovisual content for young people”.
Despite the dip in admissions, Bruel passionately defended France’s famed film distribution model, referencing ongoing pressure from US studios and streamers who have been urging the country to adapt its strict windowing policies that have traditionally favoured theatrical release over SVOD rollout.
“Attacks also come from outside our borders, from actors who oppose, in particular, our media chronology, one of France’s finest inventions,” said Bruel.
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