A little something extra alone recorded almost a third of the 15 million French admissions last month. We hadn't seen that since spring 2014 and the box full of What Have We Done to the Good Lord?
THE exceptional start ofA little something extra last May 1 surprised box office specialists, then Artus' comedy remained strong, even enjoying the luxury of seeing its attendance increase over the weeks. As a result, in just one month, it recorded 4.8 million admissions in France, becoming at the same time the biggest success of 2024 at home watching the American blockbuster Dune: part two. In this first weekend of June, the 5 million mark was crossed, making this film the biggest French success since the pandemic, beating 4.62 millionAsterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom collected in spring 2023.
A little something extra soon in the world top 20
In parallel with the analysis of this success in particular, the CNC has just revealed the cumulative number of total entries in France for the month of May 2024. Relayed by The French Film calculates that 15.61 million tickets were sold over this period, the best score in 10 years! 4.8 million coming only fromA little something extra, Artus' comedy on disability alone accounts for nearly a third of the vouchers exchanged last month in France. It is enormous !
This score is very reassuring, because since January, attendance was lower than last year. We had to wait five months before recording a monthly increase, but what an increase: +13.5% compared to the month of May 2023, which saw 13.76 million cinema tickets purchased. This is all the more impressive since in April, the counter showed a drop of 35.2% compared to April 2023…
The CNC emphasizes that these more than 15 million tickets sold in 31 days finally mark a return to the pre-Covid level, which had not happened since last July, when the simultaneous release of barbie and D'Oppenheimer had boosted the French box office. For this month in particular, French attendance represented 18.38 million entries, an increase of 33.3% year-on-year (we were at 13.79 million in July 2022).
But comparing to other months of May, the results for 2024 are above the averages from 2017 to 2019, which oscillated between 14.1 and 15.5 million tickets sold. Better: we hadn't seen this for 10 years and the exceptional cardboard that What have we done to the good Lord? in spring 2014! That year, 19.7 cinema tickets were exchanged during May, and Philippe de Chauveron's comedy ended up passing 12 million admissions.
In details, A little something extra therefore recorded 4.8 million tickets in France in May 2024, followed by Planet of the Apes: The New Kingdom (1.93 million in three weeks), and Blue & Company (900,000 over the same period). Back to Blackthe Amy Winehouse biopic which recently crossed the million admissions mark, gained 650,000 in May, and The Fall Guy 600,000, a score equivalent to that of the Italian film There is still tomorrowpreceded by an excellent reputation. Furiosa: A Mad Max saga fis also in the top 10 thanks to 430,000 tickets sold in ten days, just like Brothers and its 400,000 countermarks exchanged in May (360,000 in total) and The Second Act and its 370,000 curious people moved since its opening of the 77th Cannes Film Festival.
This growth, however, does not allow the 2024 results to catch up with its overall delay compared to 2023. Not yet, at least: 71.6 million cinema tickets have been sold since the start of the year in France, compared to 80.97 over the same period last year. The CNC also specifies that the market share of local productions remains strong over these first five months of 2024: 46.7% compared to 44.7 at the start of 2023. That of Hollywood productions collapses over this same period, representing 39.7% of supply in France vs. 40.8% from January to May 2023. Moreover, across the Atlantic too, box office experts are concerned about the few blockbusters offered this year, and the fact that they are recording lower revenues than expected, with the exception of Dune 2by Denis Villeneuve, which has remained at the top of the US rankings since its release last March.
Even Denis Villeneuve is worried that Dune 2 will still be the biggest hit of 2024