Interestingly while the US and Canada saw a drop in profits last year the UK and Ireland saw a rise, and looking at the UK figures alone we saw an incredibly healthy rise. Why you might ask? Well for those industry types who are desperate to label the trends they’re putting it down to the number of British centered movies last year.
From the BBC come the figures:
The box office for the year rose 1% on 2004 to £840m, according to research company Nielsen EDI.
This compares with a 4% fall in the US and Canada, down to $8.83bn (£5bn), reports Screen Daily.
Many regions saw their overall takings fall, including a 30% slump in Poland and a 14% drop in Switzerland.
Screen Daily said that without Ireland’s box office performance, the UK would have seen “a more definite significant rise”.
Individual figures for Ireland have yet to be published but they are expected to show a year-on-year drop of about 12%.
That’s incredible, so UK and Ireland had a 1% rise, and that’s with Ireland carrying a drop of around 12%? That means the UK rose around 13%, and compared against world figures that’s very good. For more stats…
The release of Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit and Nanny McPhee helped the box office for October rise by 16% on the same month in the previous year.
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia were among the hits to boost December’s figures to a 30% rise on 2004.
So, actually a good year in British cinema then. Now, does 2006 hold more good news, or are sequels, prequels and Bond going to let us fall back down?
