After a difficult start to the month, France’s box office kicked into gear on May 21 as Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and Paramount’s Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning opened to garner a combined near three million admissions (approximately €21.9m*), accounting for 70% of the total box office for the month according to CNC figures.
Lilo & Stitch sold 1.3 million tickets (€9.5m), making it the best opening week of the year to date, and Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning attracted some 866,000 admissions (€6.3m).
Disney’s Thunderbolts*, released on April 30, clocked just over 1 million admissions (€7.3 million).
Further Hollywood titles – Warner Bros’ Destination Finale Bloodlines (532,000 admissions/€3.9m), Sinners (384,000 of a 970,500 total/€2.8m of €7m) and A Minecraft Movie (300,000 of its 2.6 million total/€2.2m of €19m) – also drew audiences to cinemas.
Local titles were led by Pathé’s Cannes opener, Leave One Day, the directorial debut of Amelie Bonnin, which managed to sneak into the top tier as the sixth best-performing film of the month, with 363,000 tickets sold (€2.7m) since its May 14 release.
Another Cannes-premiering film, Studiocanal’s Colours Of Time, directed by Cedric Klapisch, has had a strong start with 190,700 tickets sold (€1.4m) since its May 22 release. Studiocanal’s Love is Overrated directed by Mourad Winter also clocked an impressive 294,870 admissions (€2.1m) in May adding to its 429,600 admissions (€3.1m) since the film’s April 23 release.
Overall, May saw ticket sales dip 24.9% year-on-year to 11.8 million admissions (€86m). This was partly due to the surprise success of Pan Distribution’s breakout hit A Little Something Extra in May 2024.
In total, 64.4 million tickets (€470.1m) have been sold in French cinemas since the start of the year, down 10% from the same period in 2024, and the lowest figure since 1999’s 63.9 million (€466.5m) excluding 2020-2022’s pandemic figures.
The French distributor sector is optimistic heading into the summer months with a slew of family-friendly films from Hollywood set for release. They include Disney’s Elio and How To Train Your Dragon, potential blockbusters Ballerina (Metropolitan Filmexport), F1: The Movie (Warner Bros), and 28 Days Later (Sony), plus French films with potential including 13 Days, 13 Nights – In The Hell Of Kabul (Pathe) and comedy Rodrigue In Love (Warner Bros).
*All Euro figures based on an average ticket price of €7.30.
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