The Penguin Lessons

Source: TIFF

‘The Penguin Lessons’

The German box office flatlined for the first six months of this year.

Cinema takings increased by just 0.1% to €371.1m for the first half of 2025, compared to €370.8m for the same period in 2024, according to data collated by Comscore/Rentrak Deutschland.

The number of tickets sold to July 2 fell by 3.3% from 37.8 million to 36.6 million, although an increase in the average ticket price from €9.80 to €10.14 helped to make up for the downturn in admissions.

The figures show the German box office still remains well below its pre-pandemic highs. In the first six months of 2019, the box office stood at €430.7m from 49.1 million tickets sold.

Highs and lows

Walt Disney led the field of distributors with a market share of 26% with its top release, Lilo & Stitch, the second biggest film of the first half.

The number one film for the period was Warner Bros.’ A Minecraft Movie which is the only title so far this year to be presented with the Golden Screen Award by the exhibitors’ association HDF for passing the three million admissions mark.

Its takings of over €34m made the German market the most successful territory after the US and UK and contributed to Warner’s overall market share of 20.2% for the six months.

A number of releases did not fulfil distributors and exhibitors’ expectations: Warner’s vampire movie Sinners posted takings of €3.2m, which was in stark contrast to the results in the UK (€19.4m) and France (€7.7m), while the latest in Universal’s How To Train Your Dragon franchise could only muster around €9m in box office compared to more than $18.9m at the UK box office.

The surprise success of the first six months came with Tobis Film’s release of the Steve Coogan comedy drama The Penguin Lessons whose €4.1m takings were the highest for all territories worldwide. This was ahead of the UK’s result of €4m and substantially more than the €3m ($3.3m) posted for the US domestic release.

Local German films, though, have been having a hard time luring cinema-goers: two 2025 releases – Karoline Herfurth’s Wunderschöner and the family film Die Drei ??? Und Der Karpatenhund – and Constantin Film’s comedy Der Spitzname, which opened shortly before Christmas, were the only titles to figure in the Top 20 box-office listings.

German films’ market share at 15.8% in the first half of 2025 is the lowest for the last six years, with the exception of 2022’s 12.9% when cinemas were still recovering from widespread closures due to the pandemic.

The industry’s hopes are now pinned on film releases during the second half of 2025 to give an upswing to the box office’s performance and bring the final tally at the end of the year near to the 90 million total admissions posted in 2024.

July has already begun promisingly with Jurassic World: Rebirth, which took over €12.8m in its first two weeks.

Other potential blockbusters include Walt Disney’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Constantin Film’s Das Kanu Des Manitu, the hotly anticipated sequel of Michael Bully Herbig’s Western parody Der Schuh Des Manitu seen by over 11 million cinemagoers in Germany in 2001, Leonine Studios’ fourth and final instalment of the School Of Magical Animals family film franchise, and Disney’s end-of-year release of James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire And Ash.

Top 10 Films at German box office (Jan-June 2025)

1. A Minecraft Movie (Warner), €34.7m
2. Lilo & Stitch (Disney), €26.5m
3. Mufasa - The Lion King (Disney), €16.7m
4. Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning (Sony/Paramount), €15.9m
5. Paddington in Peru (StudioCanal), €13.3m
6. Wunderschöner (Warner), €13.2m
7. Moana (Disney), €10.5m
8. Die Drei ??? und der Karpatenhund (Sony), €9.4m
9. Captain America: Brave New World (Disney), € 9.2m
10. Thunderbolts* (Disney), €7.8m

Source: Comscore/Rentrak Germany, Jan 2-July 2, 2025

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