On the one hand, the given boom of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which queues outside and over 19 million collections in just 15 days, on the other, the theaters closed or reopened for a few despite every safety precaution: the cinema he is alive but for now at least in the room he is rather unconscious.
The data of Christmas receipts are still partial, generally the balance is after January 6, but it does not take Nostradamus to hypothesize them at peak in the period of the year in which historically even the most recalcitrant indulge in leisure entertainment in comfortable armchairs in the dark as a gift under the tree.
Covid and the fears it brings with it, more or less aware, more or less justified (the exhibitors underline the state of safety of the structures), make 2021 close in deep red and what should have been the year of the restart it has become the encore of the annus horribilis of 2020, indeed even worse. Cinetel, which monitors 94% of Italian cinemas, released the data for the year today and there is little to be happy while trying to read them without emphasis. The president of the company of Anica and Anec, Davide Novelli, warns: "The measurement of the results of a sector during such a complicated phase, especially in a sector such as the film industry, one of the most affected by the pandemic scenario, requires a lot of attention in interpreting the data. :these numbers indicate the seriousness and the economic and social stress suffered by cinemas and cinema distributions, but which at the same time underline the vitality and the ability to react of the entire supply chain ".
You enter the cinema with the Super Green Pass and watch the film with the Ffp2 mask (for now 100% capacity) but there is no doubt that the market is strongly conditioned by the health emergency and not these days: the theaters have been closed for 4 months from the beginning of January to the end of April, then the desire to go out and the summer have postponed the real autumn return cold by the new worsening of Covid. Moral: in Italy in 2021 the cinemas recorded a total collection of about 170 million euros for a number of admissions equal to 25 million tickets sold. It is a slightly lower result than that of 2020 (-7% receipts and -11% attendance) which had nevertheless benefited from one of the best starts ever in pre-pandemic market conditions. If you look at the prepandemic era then the impact is thunderous:there is a 71% decrease in collections and 73% in presences compared to the average for the three-year period 2017-2018-2019. A frightening figure that if reduced to correctly consider only the data on the period May-December, the months in which the cinemas were reopened, lightens a bit, settling on about 51% and 53% less than the average for the period. 2017-2018-2019. It should be remembered, reports Cinetel, that in 2020 the cinemas were closed from the end of October onwards and therefore it was not possible to consider this year as average). Seeing the glass half full is very hard, one can only remember in what conditions of resilience the cinema went ahead: they only reopened starting from April 26, in a context of substantial access restrictions such as the "curfew"and the distancing in the room, until the introduction of the "green pass" in August, the "super green pass" and the additional rules introduced close to the Christmas holidays.
Spider-Man's success allows for an adrenaline rush: hope as they say is the last to die. And if 2021 has given a further psychological blow to cinema-hungry spectators who have been binge watching for two years now in platform streaming binge watching, it will be understood, but of course the unknown is great, until then the rules on the windows between the hall and the platform. , as requested by the sector, they will be clear, rigid and spaced.
Positive signs for the exercise? The month-on-month growth trend, compared to the three-year period 2017-2018-2019, which from the initial -87% led the market to recover and reduce the difference with percentages of less than 40% between October and November, until the previous weekend at Christmas which, albeit negative, marked the best difference (-10.7%) compared to the same period of 2019.
For the sake of ranking: at the top of the box office "Spider-Man: No Way Home" (over 19 million euros of takings), "Eternals" (8.4 million) and "No Time To Die" (8 million). The three Italian films that have grossed the most are "Me against You - the mystery of the enchanted school" (5 million), "Like a cat on the ring road - return to Coccia di Morto" (3.2 million) and "Freaks Out "(2.6 million).
As regards Italian productions, including co-productions, there was a collection of over 36 million and a share of the total of over 21% in line with the average for the three-year period 2017-2019.
