The king of the box office was overtaken two days before the New Year.
Avatar: the Way of the Water
becomes the biggest success of the year at the cinema in France, dethroning
Top Gun: Maverick
and fueling hope for 2023, a year that promises to be decisive for cinemas.
According to figures compiled by Disney, more than 6.87 million viewers have boarded the star Pandora since the release of this new
Avatar
on December 14.
During the holidays, the film attracted more than 500,000 spectators a day, a rate that allowed it to dethrone Tom Cruise's fighter jet and the 6.76 million admissions achieved with its Top Gun
comeback
since .
may.
At the global level, France offers James Cameron's film, which has already exceeded one billion dollars in revenue, its third largest estimated income, behind the United States and China.
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“The family audience is very present as well as the occasional spectators who had never yet returned to the cinema for three years and the start of the pandemic”
, welcomes AFP Frédéric Monnereau, director of distribution at Disney.
"This success is good news for the entire cinema and theater industry
," he added, noting that
"the more admissions a film has, the more taxes it generates"
paid to production .
of films, in the French system.
If no one dares to bet on the final score (perhaps 10 million, they whisper at Disney),
Avatar
should continue its momentum in early 2023. The first part, 13 years ago, attracted a total of 14.7 million viewers - and remains the highest-grossing film in history (nearly $2.9 billion in worldwide revenue).
Bring smiles to the industry
The success of
Avatar: the Way of the Water
is enough to bring smiles to theaters, after a year 2022 where part of the public was still lacking.
Attendance figures will not be released until Monday but it should be down around a quarter from pre-Covid.
In 2022,
"the entire public returned to theaters, but by being more selective"
, analysis for AFP Éric Marti, specialist at Comscore: American films were a
"motor"
when, on the French side, only films
“with a certain originality”
resisted, to the detriment of big comedies for example.
France is doing better than other countries like Korea, the United Kingdom or especially Italy, also notes Éric Marti.
"The year is ending better than it started"
, tempers the general delegate of the Federation of French cinemas, Marc-Olivier Sebbag:
"We are very optimistic for 2023 when we will finally find a film offer comparable to the years pre-crisis.
For Eric Marti, the success of films like
Top Gun
and
Avatar
have in any case proved to the studios
“that they could not do without the room”
.
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In 2023, cinemas are betting in particular, in the action and adventure department, on Keanu Reeves and the new
John Wick
, Tom Cruise in
Mission: Impossible
and the return of Harrison Ford in
Indiana Jones
.
The third
Ant-man
,
finally, must inaugurate a new "
phase
" of the Marvel universe.
Steven Spielberg will deliver his most intimate film (
The Fabelmans
- February 22), Christopher Nolan presents
Oppenheimer
, on the father of the atomic bomb while the darling of independent cinema Greta Gerwig is expected on a project as enigmatic as candy pink,
Barbie
, with Margot Robbie in the title role.
In France, the year will be marked by the new
Asterix and Obelix
by Guillaume Canet and its XXL cast (Gilles Lellouche, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard) as well as an ambitious adaptation of The
Three Musketeers
, two parts of which are due out in 2023. comedy, we are expecting Philippe Lacheau twice (
Alibi.com 2
and
3 days max
), Dany Boon with
Life for real
or the duo Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache (
A difficult year
).