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Leading French actors Thierry Lhermitte, François Berléand and Charles Berling will play themselves in Ged Marlon’s theatre comedy Achilles’ Skills (Les Talents d’Achille) which Other Angle Pictures is launching at Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris market this week.

The film follows the titular Achille who is attempting to stage his latest play and tries to convince his famous friends Lhermitte, Berléand and Berling to star in it by telling them he only has six months to live.

The film is produced by Writerz and is now in post-production. Moonlight will release in France later this year.

Achille’s...

French films took an estimated €250.2m in overseas markets in 2024 from 38.1 million admissions, according to projected annual figures released by Unifrance today (January 13).

This represents an 11% drop from 2023’s final tally of €271.4m and 42.7 million admissions although the final 2024 figures won’t be announced until October. Last year’s January predicted figures for 2023 (€234m and 37.4 million admissions) ended up being surpassed by the final numbers.

Dramatic films led the way with 26.1% of ticket sales abroad, followed by comedies at 21.8%, and action and adventure films with 21.3%;animation – 2023’s top genre – dropped to 17.7%.

Europe remains the continent with the largest appetite for French fare,...

On the heels of a 2024 box office which saw French movies clinching a near record market share, the Gallic film and TV promotion org Unifrance is expanding its Rendez-Vous With French Cinema, a mini-market gathering local sales agents and 500 international buyers from roughly 40 countries.

The 27th edition of the Paris Rendez-Vous, which is dedicated to French films and TV content, is taking place this year in a new location, at the Pullman Paris Montparnasse, boasting panoramic views of the city of lights. The new space will allow French film and TV companies to be set up in a single location and spark dealmaking activity.

“Three years after our merger with TV France International, it’s great to see everyone under the same banner and in a unique location. It creates a vibrant atmosphere,” says Unifrance’s managing director Daniela Elstner, who previously led the Paris-based sales company Doc & Film International before joining the org.

Happy tunes at the French box office: The Musicians to open UniFrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Pari Photo: UniFrance As denizens of the French film industry gather in Paris this week for the annual UniFrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema the omens are brighter than they have been for many a year.

The last 12 months have seen two diverse successes – the feel-good comedy A Little Something Extra, directed by comedian Artus, with a cast of non-professional actors with disabilities and the epic swashbuckler The Count of Monte Christo, based on the Alexandre Dumas classic and directed by Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte with a dashing star turn from Pierre Niney. Among others both are being heavily touted for Lumière and César awards.

Figures released by the Cnc (the national film body) indicate that almost half the tickets sold last year at the French box office were for French...

Italy’s box office revenues remained stable in 2024, totalling roughly €494 million ($513 million) in grosses and 70 million admissions – which is just slightly below the country’s $514 million 2023 intake.

Disney landed the year’s top 3 titles with “Inside Out 2,” which grossed $48.3 million locally; “Moana 2,” which pulled $20 million; and “Deadpool & Wolverine” which clocked in at $18.7 in the Italian theatrical market, according to figures released by national box office compiler Cinetel.

But amid a dearth of Hollywood blockbusters, due to the impact of last year’s Hollywood strikes, it was local movies, such as Italy’s sleeper hit “The Boy With Pink Pants,” that proved crucial to keeping the market buoyant. “The Boy With Pink Pants,” a teen drama by relatively unknown director Margherita Ferri about the harrowing true tale of a 15-year-old boy who took his own life after enduring bullying at school and online, became the year’s surprise...

France was one of the few markets to see admissions increase year-on-year in 2024, driven by a powerhouse top 10, three of which were local blockbusters.

Admissions reached 181.3 million admissions, up a slight 0.5% on 2023, according to figures from Comscore and the Cnc. Total box office for the year was an estimated €1.3 billion ($1.35bn) based on an average ticket price of €7.20, driven largely by French films that took a 44.4% market share, the highest since 2008.

However this was still 12.8% down from the pre-pandemic yearly average of the 2017-2019 period.

Scroll down for full top 30 chart

An uneven 2024 started off slowly with just 55.9 million ticket sales between January and April,...

The French box office edged up by 0.5% year-on-year in 2024 hitting 181.3M admissions for an overall gross of roughly $1.36B, according to figures released by France’s National Cinema Centre (Cnc).

The body said that while the overall admissions figure for 2024 remained some 12.8% below pre-pandemic levels, the results were encouraging.

It noted that the pre-pandemic gap had closed in the last eight months to 2.7%, and that the numbers were better than the U.S. and other comparable markets in Europe, such as the UK, which it said had seen a 1% drop in receipts, and Spain, where there had been a 7% year-on-year fall.

The body said the biggest cause for celebration was the performance of local movies, which accounted for 44% of admissions, in comparison to 36.7% for U.S. films.

This is the highest market share for French films since 2008 when Dany Boon hit Welcome To The Sticks and Asterix At The Olympic Games,...

After surging back from the pandemic with a 16% growth in 2023, France’s box office continued to grow in 2024 with €1.36 billion ($1.41 billion) grossed from 183.1 million admissions sold, a 0.5% year-on rise, according to Comscore and the National Film Board (Cnc).

While the increase may appear modest, it nevertheless solidifies France as Europe’s healthiest theatrical market, and one that shows the biggest signs of post-covid recovery even in a year that saw the country host the Olympic Games. Elsewhere in Europe, ticket sales dipped in 2024, per Comscore France.

The market share of French movies reached 44.4% compared to 36.7% for American movies, according to the Cnc, which notes that “it’s one of the highest level for local releases ever recorded.”

A wide-ranging duo of French movies beat Hollywood heavyweights to take the first two slots of this year’s box office chart: “A Little Something Extra” (“Un p’tit truc en plus”), a...

By most standards, Sandhya Suri’s fiction feature debut “Santosh” is already a hit. After premiering in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar, the Hindi-language crime thriller about a widow who inherits her late husband’s police officer job in rural India has gone on to win the Golden Frog for debut director in Camerimage, land a European Film Award nomination and win two British Independent Film Awards. In France, the film had a successful box office run over the summer, with more than 150,000 admissions to date. It’s now the U.K.’s submission for the Oscars’ international film category – following in the triumphant footsteps of “The Zone of Interest” – and recently made the shortlist.

And yet “Santosh” achieved almost all of this without having a U.K. distributor lined up, sales agent Mk2 and its producers having spent months struggling to find a suitable partner.

Indeed, there was eleventh...

Exclusive: When the CW announced in 2022 that it was cancelling DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow after seven seasons, actor-writer Adam Tsekhman, who played Gary Green, and writer-director Andrew Kasch, who was attached as an editor and director, admit it was a blow.

But the pair, who had become friends over the course of their six years on the superhero show, did not rest idle for long as they came together to collaborate on a whacky short film called The Gummy Bear.

“In our depression, Andrew had the idea for the short and invited me over, and we did it for nothing,” says Canadian actor Tsekhman.

The actor stars in the psychedelic short as a man who is given an experimental gummy bear as a freebie with his regular cannabis delivery. One bite sends him on an unexpected mind-blowing trip. Kasch mixes live action with a kaleidoscope of different animation styles for the trip scenes.

French sales Other Angle (“A Little Something Extra”) has boarded “Ph-1,” a tech-driven political thriller starring Mark Kassen, Abubakar Salim, Dina Shihabi, Vinessa Shaw and Jesse L. Martin.

An actor-filmmaker, Kassen directed the movie from a script he co-wrote with Cheryl Guerriero. Kassen produced the movie alongside Iliana Nikolic under his production banner Like Minded Entertainment.

“Ph-1” follows a politician with a promising future who is trapped in his luxurious penthouse by a remote captor and is forced to witness his life destroyed by social and conventional media. He embarks on a journey to escape the premise while also struggling to uncover who framed him and why.

An actor-turned-filmmaker, Kassen previously directed “Puncture” starring Chris Evans, and “Bernard and Doris” starring Ralph Fiennes and Susan Sarandon for HBO, as well Evans’s “Before We Go.”

Now completed, “Ph-1” has a contemporary resonance, Kassen said, because “we are reliving the cultural landscape of the 1970’s.

Studiocanal’s romantic dramaBeating Hearts (L’Amour Ouf) topped the French box office in October during a strong month that saw admissions hit 15.53 million (€111.8m based on an average ticket price of €7.20), a 10.8% jump from last year according to figures from the Cnc.

Audiences turned out strongly for Gilles Lellouche’s film which stars Adele Exarchopolous and Francois Civil and premiered in Competition at Cannes in May. The melodrama has sold 2.17 million tickets (approximately €15.6m) after two weeks in cinemas since its October 16 release. Strong word of mouth particularly among younger audiences helped the decades-spanning romantic drama sell more tickets in...

Worldwide box office October 18-20 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. Smile 2 (Paramount) $46m $46m $23m $23m 63 2. The Wild Robot (Universal) $33.3m $196m $23.2m $94.3m 77 3. Joker: Folie a Deux (Warner Bros) $16.9m $191.9m $14.7m $135.5m 79 4. Terrifier 3 (various) $12.3m $44.8m $3m $8.6m 10 5. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Warner Bros) $8.7m $434.6m $3.7m $150.6m 75 6. The Volunteers: To The War 2 (various)

$8.5m $154.5m $8.5m $154.5m 2 7. L’Amour ouf (Studiocanal) $6.6m $6.6m $6.6m $6.6m 1 8. The Substance (Mubi) $5.2m $42.1m $4.3m $28.7m 36 9. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets (Warner Bros) $4.7m $4.7m $4.7m $4.7m 1 10. Transformers One (Paramount) $4.6m $119m $2.6m $62.4m 71

Credit: Comscore.

“Lol: Last One Laughing,” the Amazon Prime blockbuster comedy format that’s been adapted in over 20 territories, is set for a bold French spinoff that involves hidden cameras.

Whereas the original format sees famous comedians cooped up in a house where they compete to make each other laugh and keep a straight face, “Lol in Real Life” will take six celebrity contestants out in random public places in France and among anonymous people who don’t know about the game. All their interactions will be filmed by hidden cameras.

Ordered by Thomas Dubois, head of France at Amazon MGM Studios, the spinoff will introduce new rules which will require the six celebrities to make as many people as possible laugh, whether they’re fellow contestants or anonymous folks. Each laugh is worth one point. At the end of the 6-hour game, the two celebrities with the most points will reach the final.

Pan-European indie group Vuelta, which recently bought Telepool in Germany, has completed another strategic acquisition with WW Entertainment, one of Benelux’s largest distributors.

With offices in Amsterdam and in Belgium, WW Entertainment (previously eOne Entertainment Benelux) has consolidated a solid portfolio of local and international titles in the last decade. WW Entertainment’s recent hits include “Loverboy: Emoties Uit,” as well as “Hit Man” and “Bombini Bangkok Nights.”

The acquisition of WW Entertainment gives Vuelta a solid footprint in Benelux, a key European market for theatrical distribution, spreading from Belgium to the Netherlands.

The deal also fits into Vuelta’s strategy to build synergies with some of its other European distribution banners, including Scanbox in Scandinavia, SquareOne/Telepoolin Germany and Pan in France. The latter just scored big in France with the local dramedy “A Little Something Extra” which outperformed Hollywood blockbusters tops this year’s French box office,...

The French box office rose 10.1% in September compared to the same month in 2023, with 9.86 million tickets sold (€71m based on an average ticket price of €7.20) according to estimates from the Cnc.

The rise was driven by Warner Bros’ Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice and a slew of Cannes releases.

However, the month was 11.3% down on the pre-pandemic 2017-2019 average – and September 2023 had been particularly weak, posting just 8.8 million admissions (€63.2m).

Nevertheless, the overall picture remained upbeat. Admissions for the first nine months of the year reached 127.68 million (€920m), down 4.6% year-on-year after a slow start. This was down to the summer bounceback, driven by...

The French box office rose 10.1% in September compared to the same month in 2023, with 9.86 million tickets sold (€71m based on an average ticket price of €7.20) according to estimates from the Cnc.

The rise was driven by Warner Bros’ Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, a slew of Cannes releases and a robust performance from Francis Ford Coppla’s Megalopolis.

However, the month was 11.3% down on the pre-pandemic 2017-2019 average – and September 2023 had been particularly weak, posting just 8.8 million admissions (€63.2m).

Nevertheless, the overall picture remained upbeat. Admissions for the first nine months of the year reached 127.68 million (€920m), down 4.6% year-on-year after a slow start.

French studio Pathé has seen its marketing and programming strategy pay off with “The Count of Monte Cristo,” an epic adventure film adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ classic which struck box office gold in France during a competitive summer marked by the Olympics.

Helmed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière (“The Three Musketeers”), the sweeping three-hour movie has become a proper French blockbuster, selling more than 8 million tickets locally (as of Sept. 9) and grossing over $75 million internationally with most major markets yet to open. These include the U.S where Samuel Goldwyn Films will release “The Count of Monte Cristo” in December.

The movie, produced by Dimitri Rassam’s Chapter 2 with a budget of €43 million, world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it earned unanimous praise with Variety’s Peter Debruge calling it a “genuine triumph” and “a stunning, emotionally satisfying adventure tale.”

Although it’s based on a classic of French literature,...

The French box office dipped 7.5% in August year on year to 14.3 million admissions but the three-month summer period was up on 2023 thanks to a strong June and July, according to Cnc figures.

Pathé’s epic Alexandre Dumas adaptation The Count Of Monte-Cristo, released June 28, continued its reign in August, topping the charts for the second month in a row with 2.1 million more admissions added in August. It has helped the box office to tackle its slow start to the year garnering 7.6 million admissions in total.

If it reaches 8 million as expected, it will be the first time since 1998 three films...

Led by Disney’s “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” with a big assist from Universal’s “Despicable Me 4,” this has been a terrific box-office summer. It gives real hope for the future when it was in short supply.

However, there’s a fly in the White Claw. The foreign takes are way, way down, to the point that it may force studios to reassess the budget parameters that can actually turn a profit.

We looked at the top 10 summer grosses in the U.S./Canada for 2019, 2023, and 2024 to date (skipping the Covid-impacted 2020-2022). The results show a sharp drop in share of foreign gross even as domestic recovers.

Top 10 Summer Domestic HitsU.S./CanadaForeign2019: $10B34% ($3.37B)66% ($6.67B)2023: $5.7B41% ($2.88B)59% ($3.41B)2024 (to date) $5.1B46% ($2.35B)54% ($2.75B)

A summer isn’t the year, but it’s the sweet spot for the most-expensive, biggest-grossing films. This summer has...

The French box office continued its strong summer surge with 18.71 million admissions in July, the best for the month since 2011, according to figures from the Cnc.

The Count Of Monte-Cristo, released June 28, led the charge with 4 million admissions in July for a total of 5.2 million. Pathé’s historical epic was followed by Inside Out 2 (Disney), which added 3.4 million admissions for a 7.2 million total since its June 19 release, and Despicable Me 4 (Universal), which launched on July 10 and has sold 2.7 million tickets.

French comedy A Little Something Extra (Pan Distribution) continued to perform strongly after 13 weeks in cinemas, selling 1.2 million tickets in July.

France’s Cnc has introduced a series of reforms to boost distribution of arthouse cinema in the country that will roll out over the next two years.

Scroll down for the top 10 arthouse releases in France in 2024

The annual budget for what is known in France as “le cinéma art et essai” has been set at €19m for 2024, up €1m from the previous year.

The increased funding is meant to better reward exhibitors who give what they call “fragile arthouse films a chance” and support the marketing of arthouse titles especially to the younger 15-25 age demographic.

The Cnc is...

France’s National Cinema Centre (Cnc) has announced it is increasing the size of the country’s Oscar selection committee to reinforce its independence.

The move follows controversy over the Cnc-run committee’s recent choices of film to represent France in the Best International Feature Film category.

Last year, there was major upset within the film industry after the committee selected period drama The Taste Of Things over hot favorite, Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of A Fall.

There was talk in the local industry at the time of covert lobbying against the film in response to Triet’s outspoken stance against the government of President Emmanuel Macron on receiving her Cannes prize.

The Taste Of Things failed to make it to the nomination stage, while Anatomy of a Fall enjoyed a buzzy awards season in Europe and the U.S., winning Best Original Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards.

The 39th edition of France’s reduced-price movie ticket scheme, La Fête du Cinéma, has blasted through all previous records with 4.65 million admissions across the four-day event. The promotion sees movie tickets discounted to 5 euros each for all showings in participating cinemas (excluding premiums for 3D and other special screenings).

French exhibition org, the National Cinema Federation (Fncf), reports that attendance this year reps a 50% increase over 2023’s edition as well as versus those of the three years preceding Covid.

The Fête du Cinéma ran for four days — from June 30-July 3 this year — the format it adopted in 2012.

The top films across the period — and despite distractions from tense elections and football — were Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2, which, through Tuesday, has grossed $26.9 million in the market...

Local audiences flocked to French cinemas in June where box office rose 28.9% rise in ticket sales on June 2023, totalling 13.2 million admissions, according to the Cnc.

The ticket sales are the best for a month of June since 2013’s 13.8million admissions. They were boosted by the June 29 annual five-day Fête du Cinema exhibitors’ initiative that sees ticket prices of just €5. The first day garnered a record 1.4 million ticket sales, the best in more than 20 years for the event.

Despite a tumultuous start to the year with ticket sales falling year-on-year over the first four months of the year – down 7.5% in January,...

UK’s Odeon Cinemas Expands Family Offer

In a bid to bolster its draw for families, the UK’s Odeon Cinemas is expanding the scope of its “adults pay kids prices” deal. The scheme will see admits for one adult and one child from as little as £10 for an Odeon Cinema and £15 for an Odeon Luxe throughout 2024. The AMC-owned chain says it’s making the investment into its family offerings as data has shown that affordability and convenience are the biggest concerns for families when considering activities, particularly over the summer holidays. With the opening weekend of Inside Out 2 marking Odeon’s busiest since National Cinema Day last September, turnstiles have been on fire. The UK gross for IO2 through Sunday stands at $40.2M while such titles with family appeal on deck include Despicable Me 4 on July 12 and Harold and the Purple Crayon on August 2. Later in the year,...

A decade after “La Famille Belier,” which was remade as the Oscar-winning “Coda,” another comedy featuring protagonists with disabilities, “A Little Something Extra” has stormed the French box office. It’s not only the year’s biggest hit so far, but the highest grossing French movie since before the pandemic.

Released May 1 by Pan Distribution and modestly budgeted at €6.1 million ($6.55 million), the feel-good movie (called “Un p’tit truc en plus” in French) has grossed an estimated €50.7 million ($54 million) from 7.2 million tickets sold as of June 16 — two times more than Warner Bros. tentpole “Dune 2” starring Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya.

It’s a mighty feat, considering that that unlike “La Famille Belier,” in which the deaf and speech-disabled characters are played by bankable European stars — Karin Viard and Francois Damiens — “A Little Something Extra” has an ensemble cast of young non-professionals with different types of disabilities.

The movie, produced by Pierre Forette...

Anouk Aimee, the French actress who received a best actress Oscar nomination in 1967 for A Man And A Woman, has died aged 92.

Aimee died at her home in Paris. Her death was confirmed by an Instagram post from her daughter Manuela Papatakis, which read, “With my daughter, Galaad, and my granddaughter, Mila, we have great sadness to announce the departure of my mother Anouk Aimée.”

Born Nicole Francoise Florence Dreyfus in Paris in 1932, she made her film debut aged 14 in the role of Anouk in Henri Calef’s The House Under The Sea. She kept the name for her career,...

Anouk Aimee, the French actress who received a best actress Oscar nomination in 1967 for A Man And A Woman, has died aged 92.

Aimee died at her home in Paris. Her death was confirmed by an Instagram post from her daughter Manuela Papatakis, which read, “With my daughter, Galaad, and my granddaughter, Mila, we have great sadness to announce the departure of my mother Anouk Aimée.”

Born Nicole Francoise Florence Dreyfus in Paris in 1932, she made her film debut aged 14 in the role of Anouk in Henri Calef’s The House Under The Sea. She kept the name for her career,...

French box office phenomenon A Little Something Extra has been sold to Square One in Germany, Scanbox in Scandinavia, Moving Story in Australia, Volga in Russia, The Searchers in the Netherlands, Shoval Film in Israel and Films4U in Portugal by Other Angle.

Negotiations are reportedly ongoing for both theatrical and remakes deals to North America, the UK, Spain, Japan, Latin America, Eastern Europe, China, Greece, Middle East and Korea.

The debut feature from actor-comedian Artus is a comedy drama about a father-son duo fleeing the police who take refuge at a summer camp for young adults with disabilities. The...

Worldwide box office June 14-16 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. Inside Out 2 (Disney) $295m $295m $140m $140m 39 2. Bad Boys: Ride Or Die (Sony) $63.8m $214.6m $30.8m $102.4m 63 3. The Garfield Movie (Sony) $12.2m $217.7m $7.2m $139.2m 61 4. Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle (various) $11.2m $120.3m $11m $113.7m 31 5. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (Disney) $8.6m $374.5m $3.4m $216.7m 53 6. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros) $7.7m $160.1m $5.3m $97m 79 7. If (Paramount) $7.1m $173.5m $3.6m $72.6m 67 8. The Watchers (Warner Bros) $6.6m $23.3m $2.9m $9.6m 73 9. A Little Something Extra (various)

$4.7m $64.4m $4.6m $64.2m...

Worldwide box office June 7-9 Rank Film (distributor)3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l)3-day (int’l)Territories 1. Bad Boys: Ride Or Die (Sony) $104.6m $104.6m $48.6m $48.6m 61 2. The Garfield Movie (Sony) $25.3m $192.7m $15.3m $124.1m 62 3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros) $17.9m $144.4m $13.7m $85.7m 79 4. If (Paramount) $14.2m $160.7m $6.2m $67.2m 66 5. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (Disney) $12.3m $359.7m $6.9m $210m 53 6. The Watchers (Warner Bros) $11.7m $11.7m $4.7m $4.7m 66 7. Be My Friend (various) $7.7m $9.8m $7.7m $9.8m 1 8. Walk The Line (various) $7.5m $10.6m $7.5 $10.6m 1 9. Crisis Negotiators (various) $5.5m $9.2m $5.5m $9.2m 2 10. A Little Something Extra...

Worldwide box office June 7-9 Rank Film (distributor)3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l)3-day (int’l)Territories 1. Bad Boys: Ride Or Die (Sony) $104.6m $104.6m $48.6m $48.6m 61 2. The Garfield Movie (Sony) $25.3m $192.7m $15.3m $124.1m 62 3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros) $17.9m $144.4m $13.7m $85.7m 79 4. If (Paramount) $14.2m $160.7m $6.2m $67.2m 66 5. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (Disney) $12.3m $359.7m $6.9m $210m 53 6. The Watchers (Warner Bros) $11.7m $11.7m $4.7m $4.7m 66 7. Be My Friend (various) $7.7m $9.8m $7.7m $9.8m 1 8. Walk The Line (various) $7.5m $10.6m $7.5 $10.6m 1 9. Crisis Negotiators (various) $5.5m $9.2m $5.5m $9.2m 2 10. A Little Something Extra...

Oban Phoenix Cinema, a community-owned venue located on the west coast of Scotland, has closed with immediate effect.

The cinema has attributed the closure to a marked decline in audience numbers and revenue stemming from the Covid pandemic, together with rising operating costs due to inflationary pressures. The cinema has ceased trading with immediate effect as of yesterday (June 3), with all eight staff made redundant.

For the Oban community, the nearest open cinemas are some distance away. Fort William’s Highland Cinema is 45 miles away, The Birks Cinema in Aberfeldy is 80 miles and Campbeltown Picture House is 90 miles.

A spokesperson...

The French box office bounced back in May after an April plunge to reach 15.6 million admissions, up 13.5% from the same month last year.

Ticket sales year on year from January through May are down by 11.6% compared to the same period in 2023 after a slow start to the year and admissions to French cinemas falling by 35.5% in what was an abysmal April.

However, the June-May total of 171 million admissions is equal to the same period year on year. More was merrier for a month when 74 new films were released compared to 63 in 2023.

The renewed May momentum was mostly due to local-language phenomenon A Little Something Extra,...

Worldwide box office May 31-June 2 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. The Garfield Movie (Sony) $41m $152.1m $27m $100.6m 61 2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros) $31.7m $114.3m $21m $64.7m 78 3. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (Disney) $24m $337m $15.2m $197.1m 52 4. If (Disney) $21.8m $138m $11m $57.6m 70 5. Doraemon The Movie: Nobita’s Earth (Toho) $12.2m $40.5m $12.2m $40.5m 1 6. Symphony Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle (various) $9m $95m $5.5m $91.5m 44 7. A Little Something Extra (Pan Distribution) $8m $49.1m $8m $49.1m 1 8. The Fall Guy (Universal) $7.6m $157.8m $3.4m $77.6m 82 9. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (various) $5.1m...

Arclight Films has unveiled the first look of Joel Kinnaman in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s thriller Ice Fall.

The story follows a young Indigenous game warden who arrests a poacher that knows the location of a plane carrying millions of dollars that has crashed in a frozen lake.

When a group of criminals and corrupt cops are alerted to the poacher’s whereabouts, the warden and the poacher must flee across the treacherous lake before the ice melts.

Production on Ice Fall wrapped recently in Bulgaria.

The cast includes Cara Jade Myers, Danny Huston, Graham Greene, Martin Sensmeier, Oliver Trevena, and DeVaughn Nixon.

Update: It may be a stretch, but we could coin a new phrase and call this the cat days of spring. To wit: Sony/Alcon’s The Garfield Movie, which began early overseas release last month, took the No. 1 spot for Hollywood on the domestic, international and global charts this frame.

The offshore session in 60 markets was $27.1M, lifting worldwide to $152.2M. The voracious kitty had paws aplenty with overseas markets down just 3% from last weekend. The international box office cume is now $100.7M.

In China, Alcon partnered with Stars Collective to distribute the film via China Film Group and Alibaba Pictures and opened to $8.2M, starting from Saturday. In two days, Garfield has surpassed the lifetimes of Puss In Boots: The Last Wish and Migration.

The tabby added such new markets this session as Poland with $2.4M, which is 45% higher than The Secret Life of Pets 2. Australia debuted...

Worldwide box office May 24-26 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world)3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros) $58.8m $58.8m $33.3m $33.3m 76 2. The Garfield Movie (Sony) $38.7m $91m $14m $66.3m 51 3. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (Disney) $33.9m $294.8m $20.6m $172m 53 4. If (Paramount) $27.4m $98.8m $11.3m $40m 65 5. The Fall Guy (Universal) $9.9m $143.8m $4m $71.6m 82 6. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (various) $7m $25.2m $1.4m $3.9m 22 7. Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In (various) $6.9m $91.1m $6.9m $91.1m 8 8. A Little Something Extra (Pathe) $6.9m $37.8m $6.9m $37.8m 1 9. The Last Frenzy (various) $5.6m $89.2m $5.5m $89.2m...

Rolling off its acquisition of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” Italy’s leading independent distributor Eagle Pictures has scooped Italian remake rights to French smash hit “A Little Something Extra,” along with a raft of high-profile projects shopped at the Cannes Film Market.

The company, which is owned by veteran producer-distributor Tarak Ben Ammar, will produce and distribute the Italian remake of “A Little Something Extra” (“Un Ptit truc en plus), Artus’ heartwarming family comedy which has taken the French box office by storm, selling a whooping 3.4 million tickets in theaters in three weeks.

“It’s a delightful film about a father and his son who rob a little jewelry shop in a small town and as they’re looking a place to hide, they get on a bus without realizing that it’s taking them to a summer camp for young adults with disabilities,” Ben Ammar said. “They all...

Worldwide box office May 17-19 RankFilm (distributor)3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l)Cume (int’l)Territories 1. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (Disney) $66.6m $237.5m $40.6m $136.3m 53 2. If (Paramount) $55m $59m $20m $24m 59 3. The Fall Guy (Universal) $15.6m $127.6m $7.2m $64.6m 82 4. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (Lionsgate) $13.7m $13.7m $1.7m $1.7m 14 5. The Garfield Movie (Sony) $10.3m $49m $10.3m $49m 27 6. Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In (various) $8m $77m $8m $77m 5 7. Tarot (Sony) $7m $29.9m $5m $14.5m 53 8. Un P’tit Truc En Plus (Pandis) $6.8m $25.9m $6.8m $25.9m 1 9. The Last Frenzy (various) $6.6m $78.4m $6.6m $78.4m 3 10. Hovering Blade (various) $5.6m $5.7m $5.6m $5.7m 2

Credit: Comscore.

Worldwide box office May 17-19 RankFilm (distributor)3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l)Cume (int’l)Territories 1. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (Disney) $66.6m $237.5m $40.6m $136.3m 53 2. If (Paramount) $55m $59m $20m $24m 59 3. The Fall Guy (Universal) $15.6m $127.6m $7.2m $64.6m 82 4. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (Lionsgate) $13.7m $13.7m $1.7m $1.7m 14 5. The Garfield Movie (Sony) $10.3m $49m $10.3m $49m 27 6. Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In (various) $8m $77m $8m $77m 5 7. Tarot (Sony) $7m $29.9m $5m $14.5m 53 8. Un P’tit Truc En Plus (Pandis) $6.8m $25.9m $6.8m $25.9m 1 9. The Last Frenzy (various) $6.6m $78.4m $6.6m $78.4m 3 10. Hovering Blade (various) $5.6m $5.7m $5.6m $5.7m 2

Credit: Comscore.

Worldwide box office May 10-12 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (Disney) $129m $129m $72.5m $72.5m 53 2. The Fall Guy (Universal) $23.1m $103.7m $9.4m $54m 81 3. The Garfield Movie (Sony) $11.8m $36m $11.8m $36m 22 4. Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In (various) $9.5m $67.7m $9.5m $67.7m 3 5. Challengers (Warner Bros) $8.9m $68.7m $4.2m $30.6m 64 6. The Last Frenzy (various) $8.5m $71.2m $8.5m $71.7m 1 7. The Roundup: Punishment (various) $6.7m $63.3m $6.5m $62.6m 1 8. Un P’tit Truc En Plus (Pandis) $6.6m $16.7m $6.6m $16.7m 11 9. Tarot (Sony) $6.5m $20.2m $3m $8.2m 36 10. Godzilla x...

German distributor-producer SquareOne Entertainment, part of rising European film studio Vuelta Group, has acquired German film and TV production, distribution and licensing company Telepool, which was owned by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook.

The news was announced Wednesday by Vuelta Group chairman Jerome Levy and CEO of SquareOne and Vuelta Group Germany Al Munteanu.

Munteanu will spearhead the newly combined entity under the SquareOne banner with Michael Heyd serving as CFO/COO.

The newly combined SquareOne entity will boast a library consisting of over 1,200 titles such as “Drive,” “Intouchables,” “The Olympus Has Fallen,” “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” “Imitation Game,” “Lone Survivor,” “Book Club,” “Transporter 3,” “King Richard,” “Maurice the Tomcat” and the recently released “One Life” among others.

“For over 60 years, Telepool has been one of the leading global content houses and we are proud of the work we did with the company,” said Westbrook CEO Kosaku Yada.

Worldwide box office May 3-5 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. The Fall Guy (Universal) $53.8m $65.4m $25.3m $36.9m 79 2. The Last Frenzy (various) $29.6m $53.6m $29.6m $53.6m 1 3. Formed Police Unit (various) $23.8m $55.6m $23.8m $55.6m 1 4. Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In (various) $22.2m $47.3m $47.3m $47.3m 2 5. The Garfield Movie (Sony) $22m $22m $22m $22m 18 6. Challengers (Warner Bros) $15.1m $52.2m $7.5m $22.8m 65 7. Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (Disney) $14.4m $14.4m $6.4m $6.4m 31 8. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Warner Bros) $14.3m $546.8m $9.8m $359.8m 79 9. The Roundup: Punishment (various) $14.1m $44m $13.8m...

The Fall Guy, Universal’s romantic action comedy starring Ryan Gosling as a stunt man and Emily Blunt as a tentpole director, kicked off summer slightly below expectations on an estimated $28.5m to lead North American box office.

The film had been forecast to open in the low $30m range and Universal executives are looking at the long play and will hope it gathers momentum powered by word of mouth and an A- CinemaScore result.

Costing a reported $130m, it will need to pick up speed, just as director and former stuntman David Leitch’s previous film Bullet Train did...

Admissions to French cinemas plummeted by 35.5% in April 2024 compared to the same month the year before, according to figures from the Cnc. Ticket sales year on year from January through April were down 17% compared to the same period in 2023.

Universal’s Kung Fu Panda 4 was the top film of the month, followed by Warner Bros’ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Ugc Distribution’s local family franchise film Ducobu Passe au Vert!, Sony’s Ghostbusters: The Frozen Empire, and French comedy drama Meet the Leroys, released by Apollo Films.

The dip is not unexpected, owing to a lack of...