FDA Yearbook 2020

Film Distributors’ Association

3 Kingly Court, London

W1B 5PW UK

tel: +44 (0)20 7437 4383

email: info@fda.uk.net

launchingfilms.com

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/launchingfilmsuk

FDA

YeArbook

2020

FDA

YeArbook

2020

2

to

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Contents

4

Foreword 2

FDA 2019 4

Impact Analysis 6

10-Year Market Trends 10

A Decade in Review 14

Reflections on 2019 34

What 34

When 74

Where 80

Who 86

How 88

Cinema for All 100

Fighting Pirates 102

Worldwide Round-Up 104

Home & Mobile Entertainment 112

Almanac 122

FDA Members 123

2020 Highlights 124

Directory of Screening Rooms 125

Networking in the Film Industry 126

2020 Events Diary 127

Film Festivals 128

In Memoriam 129

Congratulations 130

Acknowledgements 130

Index of Tables, Maps and Graphs 131

Contact FDA 132

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132

2

Foreword

By Andy Leyshon

Chief Executive Officer

Film Distributors’ Association

FDA

As we enter a new decade, it is time to say

farewell to much of the tumult and uncertainty

of the last few years. Instead the focus must turn

toward the future, in which there are certainly

good grounds for optimism in the distribution

sector and the wider film ecosystem.

Looking back briefly, it is admirable that film

possesses the powers of entertainment, education

and escapism for audiences, and all three facets

have been much needed in recent times. Despite

social and economic upheaval and the seemingly

inescapable mention of Brexit, our business

continued to prosper with the combined creative

industries the fastest growing part of the UK

economy, in the last decade improving at over

twice the rate of the overall economy. Indeed,

2019 saw box office levels surpass £1.3 billion for

the 5th year in a row (the 3rd highest returns since

modern records began) and a stellar 176 million

UK audience admissions deliver the 2nd biggest

uptake in cinemagoing over the last 50 years.

Commercial confidence in the UK as a centre

of production excellence also continued, with

record levels of investment and employment

opportunities aplenty with key studio tie-ups like

Disney & Pinewood, Netflix & Shepperton and

the recently announced Sky Elstree development.

The cinema exhibition space also thrived, with a

healthy 3% spike in new screens and a concerted

vision for cinemas to become the new heartland

of physical retail, reviving UK high streets with

dynamic consumer offerings. The home

entertainment market also received a timely shot

in the arm, posting a 9.5% yearly increase,

thanks in large part to the growing consumer

appeal of SVOD content.

This coming decade promises much, and the

palpable sense of energy and excitement mirrors

the same buoyant decade 100 years ago.

Then, cinema was still emerging from its first

tentative steps and formative years as the new

decade brought seismic shifts to the industry.

A flood of new picture palaces were built,

global film superstars emerged, international

box office levels exploded, a previously unseen

stylistic sense arose, cinema found its first real

value gauge with the creation of the Academy

Awards, impactful genres began to dominate

film content and cinematic sound arrived in

groundbreaking fashion. Our industry (and it

could be argued society) was never the same

again and never looked back afterwards.

Cut to a century later, and we also stand on the

cusp of industry transformation. Streaming services

will likely reach their competitive apogee over the

coming year, though the competition likely lies

primarily between the services themselves as they

test audience habits, tastes and wallets. Major

distributors and exhibitors may witness further

commercial consolidation and collaboration,

whilst at the same time this could present

opportunities for agile independent players

to carve out their own space in the market.

The flourishing international box office trajectory

will continue to spike ever upwards, as overseas

markets aim to further redraw the existing

patterns and performance levels of film releases.

Whilst a concerted and collective responsibility

for improved sustainability across all areas

should benefit the industry’s long-term future.

Into this bright new future, the UK has an

opportunity to assert its voice in the global film

economy. It helps starting from a position of some

standing, as Europe’s leading audio-visual sector,

and with the anticipated investment levels, an

abundance of creative talent and mass audience

appetite for film consumption in all its forms, we

are set fair for success. Bringing it all back to

theatrical distribution, the unique out of home

appeal of cinema should continue to thrive.

Theatrical distribution is the essential glue that binds

production and exhibition together and enables

the impactful journey of diverse content to the

consumer. There will always be a place in society

for the collective social viewing experience, and as

parameters and paradigms shift, film will continue

to be the great democratic unifier of our times.

This book aims to delve deeper into our specific

market trends and many successes, consider the

wider global marketplace, plus reflect upon the

eventful last decade. It should serve as a useful guide

to the distribution sector, hopefully both stimulating

discussion from existing players and acting as a

good resource for encouraging new blood to

join the great cinematic adventure. Onwards to

a prosperous year ahead and happy reading.

3

3

4 FDA

2019

summary

of activity

across FDA’s

5 core

workstreams

FDA/Getty

PoLICY &

resoUrCes

Aim: To present a coherent,

positive voice for the UK & Irish

distribution sector

FDA represents its members needs in

an ever-changing industry landscape,

collaborating with key partners on

areas of interest and policy:

● FDA President, Lord Puttnam of

Queensgate, provides a unifying

sector voice and regular keynote

policy speeches

● Annual FDA Yearbook serves

as definitive source of information

on UK & Irish distribution market

● Regular networking opportunities

within industry and with wider

non-sector players

● Close working relationship with

key partners such as the BFI,

Creative Europe, DCMS, UKCA

and Cinema First

● FDA is a member of the

International Federation of Film

Distributors’ Associations (FIAD)

and Alliance for Intellectual

Property, amongst other groups

Content

ProteCtIon

Aim: To safeguard copyright and eradicate

film piracy sourced from cinemas

FDA’s Film Content Protection Agency (FCPA)

is the central point of contact and control

for asset integrity, in 2019 delivering:

● In-cinema staff briefings and incentive

programme, plus regular supply of night

vision technology to cinemas

● 33 widely circulated Vulnerable Release Alerts

and rewards presented to 40 frontline cinema

staff for their anti-piracy interventions

● A bespoke online scanning and takedown

service to detect and protect members’

assets where compromised

● Close working association and partnership

with Motion Picture Association that

includes shared investigator asset

● Professional investigation, intelligence

gathering and research in liaison with

UK & Irish law enforcement community

on matters of copyright theft

● 14 police arrests and a further 22 cautions

issued for illegal in-cinema activity

5

MeDIA

serVICes

AUDIenCe

DeVeLoPMent

InDUstrY

trAInInG

5

Aim: To fully service membership

requirements and all branches of

the media

Aim: To better understand

consumers, plus excite and inspire

the cinemagoing habit

Aim: To offer industry entry level

opportunities and develop future

leadership potential

FDA is the authoritative source of

comprehensive film information,

contacts and data for all media,

researchers and policymakers, with

the following services:

● Coordinated industry screening

calendar, covering all preview

and premiere screening activity

● Critics’ Week of Release

screenings for 350 films

● Official FDA media screenings

for 187 films

● Scottish Press Shows for 104 films

● Manchester Press Shows

for 22 films

● Showcase event screenings

for 12 films

● FDA website (launchingfilms.com)

received 1.4m views in 2019

FDA recognises the crowded,

competitive entertainment marketplace

and strategically focused on key areas:

● Producing generic online content

including weekly Top 10 Films,

seasonal trailers and other bespoke

offerings

● Successfully generated 1.9m

Facebook, 170k YouTube and

564k Twitter impressions

● Continued Ipsos Tracker research

into consumer viewing habits for

9th year of data gathering

● Worked with Into Film, encouraging

and inculcating young audiences

(5-19 year-olds) nationwide to

the joys of cinema

● Offered free online film distribution

course, 6 times a year, average

900 participants per run

FDA continues to offer a multifaceted

training & development programme,

addressing industry drive for diversity

and inclusion, 2019 covered:

● 6 free industry training courses,

including Personal Development

Skills, Industry Focused, Leadership

and Women in Distribution

● 150 full course participants and a

further 60 individual development

opportunities

● 9-month paid trainee scheme with

5 entry-level placements, and total

45 placements since 2015 with

high full-time employment rate

● Key industry masterclass sessions,

networking opportunities and

mentoring scheme

● 28th consecutive year of sponsorship

for National Film & Television

School on behalf of FDA members

6

Impact Analysis

The valuable and vital contribution that

film distribution makes to the UK’s economy

Distribution has the greatest intrinsic

value in the wider film ecosystem,

whilst also possessing the biggest

influence on the breadth and depth

of audiences’ access to film. How

do you quantify that value and

influence in the marketplace?

In recent years, FDA commissioned

Saffery Champness and Nordicity

to assess The economic impact of

the UK Theatrical Distribution

sector. The joint reports set out an

estimate of the contribution made

by film distributors to the UK

economy. Established economic

methodology was adapted to

measure the contribution in three

ways:

Direct impact – resulting from the

direct expenditure of UK-based

film distributors

indirect impact – resulting from the

goods and services purchased by

distributors from other UK industries

induced impact – resulting from

re-spending of income earned by

employees of distributors and their

suppliers

DireCT eConomiC imPACT GenerATeD by UK Film DisTribUTors

Employment – measured in full-time equivalents 4,400

Gross value added – sector’s contribution to UK economy

Exports – revenue generated for the UK economy

Saffery Champness/Nordicity calculations based on data from IDBR, ABS, Companies House, Olsberg-SPI/Nordicity (2015) and other sources

GVA plus taxes on products/services minus subsidies on products/services = Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The combination of the indirect and induced impacts is presented here as the multiplier effect.

DireCT eConomiC imPACT

£1,670 million

£262 million

multiplier effect

Through the purchase of goods and services from other sectors of the economy, e.g. advertising all around the

UK, the film distribution sector also had significant multiplier effects, which may be added to the direct economic

impact (above) in order to find the total economic impact of film distribution.

emPloymenT FTes GvA TAx revenUe

Direct impact 4,400 £1,670 million £129 million

Multiplier effects 14,500 £1,047 million £281 million

Total economic impact 18,900 £2,717 million £410 million

Saffery Champness/Nordicity calculations based on data from IDBR, ABS, Companies House, Olsberg-SPI/Nordicity (2015) and other sources

The economic activity generated by UK film distributors through both direct and multiplier effects also yielded an estimated £410 million in tax revenue for the UK government in 2014,

including income tax, National Insurance, VAT (on induced impact consumption), corporation tax and council tax

7

8

8

However, this is not the only part of the picture. There are additional points to

consider in order to appreciate the contribution of theatrical film distribution:

● The UK film distribution sector

is made up of a mixture of

multinational corporations,

medium-sized companies and

smaller/specialist businesses,

each operating within a

particular area of the sector.

● A distributor is a risk-taker. It will

be the first (and sometimes the

last) commercial contributor to a

feature film’s production budget.

A distributor’s skill is to identify

the commercial potential of a

feature film at an early stage,

sometimes before a script has

been completed and a cast

assembled, and then to put their

money where their judgement is.

Furthermore, the distributor is

not only risking their money to

finance the production of a film,

they are also committing to put

even more funding into the

marketing, promotion and other

costs associated with the actual

release of a film. For larger

releases, this could mean

committing many millions of

pounds – without a guarantee

of a commercial return.

● Distributors are also

innovators, driving change

in how films are marketed

and viewed. For example,

distributors have been the

major financial contributors to

the digital conversion of the

UK’s cinema exhibition estate.

The benefits of this digital

conversion have not only

been felt by distribution, but

more so by cinema owners

and audiences, who can now

experience a much broader,

more flexible range of

content.

In many respects, therefore, film

distribution acts as the linchpin

of the entire film sector value

chain - it links creators and the

production of films with consumers

who have a vast choice of media

and entertainment. Accordingly,

the full scope of the economic

impact of UK film distribution

should take into account its

wider economic impacts via

enabling both film production

and consumer engagement

with film content.

Wider economic impacts of film distribution

A large part of the wider economic impact is associated with the content

investments made by the production arms of distribution companies, both

US majors and independents. For example, in 2014 the total economic activity

generated by film production yielded tax revenues of £616 million for the UK

economy. In more recent years, big budget production investment has included

Wonder Woman, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Mary Poppins Returns,

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

In terms of consumer engagement, film distributors drive and fund the

positioning, marketing and promotion of films across multiple release platforms.

For example, the distribution of film content into cinemas enables those operators

to employ thousands of UK citizens and stimulates additional economic activity.

Similarly, the release of films on VoD services and DVD/Blu-ray discs is a

source of further employment and economic activity. Film distributors’ roles in

the management of character licensing also created sizeable merchandise

sales and generated further employment, GVA and tax revenue.

By combining the core impact of film distribution (through their direct and

multiplier effects) with these wider economic impacts, a fuller picture emerges

of the overall impact of film distribution in the UK. When viewed as the

linchpin of the UK film sector, film distribution is responsible for generating:

● 143,000 employment FTEs

● £7.7 billion in GVA

● £1 billion in services exports

● £2.3 billion in tax revenue

Saffery Champness/Nordicity calculations based on data from FDA, BFI, ONS, ABS, IDBR,

Companies House, Comscore, Oxford Economics (2012) and Olsberg-SPI/Nordicity (2015)

Overall, by several measures, theatrical film distribution continues to

make an important contribution to the UK’s economy and citizens.

economic saviour: the creative industries

contribute £112 billion to the UK economy

As the UK looks towards a future of redefining its

international trading relationships with the rest of the world,

the creative industries – including film, TV and music – are

an ever-more vital financial cog in the UK economy.

Over the last decade, the creative industries have grown at

over twice the rate of the overall economy and according

to the latest data published in February 2020 by the

Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS),

the current value of the creative industries stands at

£111.7bn.

This number represents 5.8% of UK Gross Value Added

(GVA = a measurement of economic contribution), and a

healthy increase of 7.4% on the previous year, more than

five times the growth of the UK economy as a whole

(1.4% increase).

In 2018/19 there was £1.9bn of inward investment in the

UK film industry as a result of tax relief. Since dedicated

tax reliefs were introduced back in 2007, the total inward

investment in the film industry has been worth £15.2bn.

All DCMS sectors combined contributed £224.1bn to the

economy, generating 11.7% of UK GVA, an increase of

7% on the previous year.

gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-digital-culture-media-sport

UK as a leading global production hub

The UK is well established as the largest audio-visual sector

in Europe and remains one of the world’s major film

production hubs with a global reputation for excellence.

In 2019, production spend on feature films in the UK hit

£1.95 billion, an increase of 7% on 2018. 188 films went into

production and were split as follows: 94 were domestic UK

films with a spend of £174.7m, 23 were UK co-productions

with a spend of £34.2m, and 71 were major inward

investment films based in the UK with a spend of £1.74bn.

Three of 2019’s top five grossing theatrical releases were made

in the UK – Avengers: Endgame, The Lion King and Star Wars:

The Rise of Skywalker. 2020 will see big budget inward

investment films such as 1917, No Time to Die, Tenet and The

Witches, plus domestic UK films including Ammonite, Dream

Horse and Last Night in Soho all brought to the big screen.

Production spend on high-end Tv shows in the UK

reached £1.66 billion, up 29% on the year before.

There was a total of 123 productions: 49 domestic UK

productions and 74 inward investment/co-productions.

Total production spend for the year hit £3.62 billion,

an increase of 16% on the highest year on record.

As we enter a new decade, the increasing financial

investment and subsequent growth in the UK production

sector looks set to continue.

Interim data/source: BFI

9

10

10-Year

Market trends

2019 ended as the 2nd biggest year for cinemagoing

in the UK in 50 years, beaten only by 2018’s record

high of 177m visits. Admissions across the whole decade

increased by over 3%, despite a marginal drop in 2019.

UK and Irish box office rose an impressive 24% in the last decade,

with 2019 finishing up as the 3rd biggest year of all time, behind

only the record breaking 2017 and close 2nd 2018.

The number of titles released in cinemas increased by over

56% between 2010-2019.

Top 20 films - with

more tentpole releases

achieving significantly

higher returns, it is no

surprise the box office

generated by the top

20 films increased

dramatically across

the decade by

over 52%.

Top 10 films - collectively

reaching £526m and

accounting for 39% of the

box office, the top 10 films

reached the decade’s

peak in 2019 with a 39%

market share (vs. 35% in

2018). This trend has been

rising steadily over the last

3 years.

Top 3 films - the top

3 titles accounted for

17% of the box office in

2019 (vs. 14% in 2018).

This was the highest

since 2015, when

SPECTRE, The Force

Awakens and Jurassic

World all achieved

a podium finish.

1.4

1.2

1.0

UK breAKDoWn oF Films by yeArly rAnKinG 2010-2019

11

billions

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 yeAr 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Top 3 3 to 10 10 to 20 20 to 50 50 to 100 100+

Gower Street Analytics

10-Year Market trends

2019 2018 2017 2016 2015

Total gross box office £1,350,488,999 £1,375,796,112 £1,378,280,334 £1,329,473,131 £1,309,606,402

UK + Ireland -1.9% vs. 2018 -0.2% vs. 2017 +6% vs. 2016 (53 weeks) +15% vs. 2014

+1.5% vs. 2015

12

Total cinema admissions 176,054,591 177,001,480 170,616,775 168,259,894 171,930,400

UK -0.5 vs. 2018 +3.7% vs. 2017 +1.4% vs. 2016 -2.1% vs. 2015 +9.2% vs. 2014

no. titles released

including event cinema

896 916 901 900 853

Top 20 films’ box office £736,702,288 £668,222,476 £710,449,756 £650,146,184 £707,142,065

Top 20 films’ share of

total box office

54.5% 48.6% 51.5% 48.9% 53.9%

Top 3 films

Avengers: Endgame

The Lion King

Toy Story 4

Avengers:

Infinity War

Mamma Mia!

Here We Go Again

Incredibles 2

Star Wars:

The Last Jedi

Beauty & the Beast

Dunkirk

Rogue One:

A Star Wars Story

Fantastic Beasts and

Where to Find Them

Bridget Jones’s Baby

SPECTRE

Star Wars:

The Force Awakens

Jurassic World

2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

Total gross box office £1,133,893,009 £1,167,036,502 £1,179,046,380 £1,129,379,496 £1,080,833,635

UK + Ireland -2.9% vs. 2013 -1% vs. 2012 +3.7% vs. 2011 +4.5% vs. 2010 +1.5% vs. 2009

Total cinema admissions 157,499,641 165,539,976 172,498,774 171,562,192 169,249,839

UK -4.9% vs. 2013 -4% vs. 2012 +0.5% vs. 2011 +1.4% vs. 2010 -2.4% vs. 2009

13

no. titles released


838 801 646 577 573

Top 20 films’ box office £492,383,127 £532,592,844 £627,933,518 £533,852,382 £483,034,642

Top 20 films’ share of

total box office

43.4% 45.6% 53.6% 47.2% 43.7%

Top 3 films

The Lego Movie

The Hobbit: The Battle

of the Five Armies

The Inbetweeners 2

Despicable Me 2

Les Misérables

The Hobbit: The

Desolation of Smaug

Skyfall

The Dark Knight Rises

Marvel Avengers

Assemble

Harry Potter and the

Deathly Hallows: Part 2

The King’s Speech

The Inbetweeners

Movie

Toy Story 3



Alice in Wonderland

Comscore

14

A Decade

in review

written by Dave Jarmain & Andy Leyshon

introduction

I don’t use film cameras. I don’t do visual effects the same way.

We don’t use miniature models; it’s all CG now, creating worlds in CG.

It’s a completely different toolset. But the rules of storytelling are the same.

James Cameron

Some two weeks before 2010 got underway, James Cameron’s Avatar

released, setting the tone for the coming 10 years: a big budget

spectacle, likely intended to launch a franchise, with a seemingly diverse

cast, tackling big ticket social issues to provide escapism with a

message, and all beautifully rendered in increasingly realistic CGI.

The 2010s saw some of the most widespread upheaval in the film

industry to date. For both distribution and exhibition, the decade of

going all digital was nothing less than a rollercoaster ride. From the

blue-hued search for unobtanium, through the rise of Marvel, to the

final days of 20th Century Fox, the neatly monikered “Disney Decade”

saw the die cast, even before January 1 rolled around.

15

A decade of consolidation and polarisation in the market ensued,

yet the 2010’s were also a period in which the UK and Ireland sought

to impart a stamp not just on the local box office, but on the world stage

too. With an increased diversity of storytelling on screen, a strong showing

for British made films and the UK increasingly the go-to production hub

of the industry, there was much to celebrate and much to see.

Here’s how things played out...

16

2010

UK lAnDsCAPe

● ONS announces the UK is officially

out of recession

● General Election results in the UK’s

first hung parliament since 1974

● A coalition government is formed between

the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats,

the last such coalition in the UK was

Churchill’s war ministry during WWII

● The Equality Act becomes law, further

protecting citizens from discrimination,

harassment or victimisation in employment

● The BBC announce alternative radio

station 6 Music is to be axed

UK & irelAnD box oFFiCe

● UK & Eire box office total £1.08bn,

+1.5% vs. 2009

● 3D accounted for more than a

fifth of the year's box office

● Admissions 169.2m, down 2.4% vs. 2009

● 573 films released in cinemas,

5th such year with over 500 titles

Disney

● Warner Bros. no.1 distributor with

18.3% market share

ToP 5 Films 2010

Film DisTribUTor releAse DATe

UK/irelAnD

oPeninG

WeeKenD inCl.

PrevieWs

oPeninG

WeeKenD

As % oF

liFeTime

UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 Toy Story 3 Disney 23 Jul £21,187,264 28.7% £73,791,346

2 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 Warner Bros. 19 Nov £18,319,721 36.1% £50,640,371

3 Alice In Wonderland Disney 5 Mar £10,555,220 24.8% £42,536,343

4 Inception Warner Bros. 16 Jul £5,912,814 16.5% £35,799,454

5 Shrek Forever After Paramount 2 Jul £8,955,554 27.7% £32,312,107

Top 5 total £235,079,621

Comscore

Toy Story 3 was the no.1 film

of the year, spending 4 weeks

at no.1. An impressive 72% of

the film’s gross came from

3D tickets. The burgeoning

conversion of 35mm to digital

screens brought about a

perfect storm for 3D to flourish.

Other animations included

Dreamworks’ fantasy epic

How to Train Your Dragon,

comedy sequel Shrek Forever

After, pseudo superhero flick

Megamind and the first outing

for supervillain Gru with his

Minions in Despicable Me.

smart and funny: Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin traversed love in later life in Nancy Myers’s It’s Complicated;

The Scarlet Letter received a 20th century makeover with Emma Stone in Easy A; Lisa Cholodenko put her relationships

on screen in marital adoption drama The Kids Are Alright; George Clooney and Anna Kendrick set-up to downsize

America in Up In The Air; and Chris Morris satirised the terror threat in Four Lions.

see it on the big screen: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 marked the beginning of the end for the

boy wizard’s epic journey; Alice In Wonderland took on a new hue via Tim Burton, causing some early controversy

over intentions to shorten the theatrical window; Inception pushed both the boundaries of IMAX technology and

the minds of the audience, giving Christopher Nolan his 2nd top 5 finish (after 2008’s The Dark Knight).

Dramatic effect: Kathryn Bigelow won Best Film and Best Director at both the BAFTA and OSCAR ceremonies for her

Iraq War bomb disposal movie The Hurt Locker; the world got their first real glimpse of star in the making Jennifer Lawrence

in Debra Granik’s Ozarks-set drama Winter’s Bone; Sandra Bullock took an award-winning turn in The Blind Side;

and David Fincher brought Facebook to the big screen in the Aaron Sorkin penned The Social Network.

Teenage kicks: Matthew Vaughn brought Mark Millar’s brutal, wise-cracking comic book Kick-Ass to life; love got

even more complicated 3rd time around in Twilight: Eclipse; ballet and hip- hop culture collided in UK superhit

Street Dance; and Noel Clarke wrote and directed a wild night out in 4.3.2.1.

17

2011

UK lAnDsCAPe

● HMV announce the closure of 60 stores

putting 900 jobs at risk

● England’s cricket team beat Australia

3-1 to win the Ashes

● The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

marry

● London and cities around the UK suffer

rioting, following the shooting of Mark

Duggan

● ONS reports that mobile phone use has

reached over 50% of the UK population

18



+4.5% vs. 2010

● 3D continued to account for £1 in

every £5 spent on cinema tickets

● Admissions 171.6m, up 1.4% on 2010


6th such year with over 500 titles


18.4% market share

Warner Bros.

ToP 5 Films 2011


UK/irelAnD

oPeninG

WeeKenD inCl.

PrevieWs

oPeninG

WeeKenD

As % oF

liFeTime

UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Warner Bros. 15 Jul £23,765,197 32.5% £73,094,515

2 The King’s Speech Momentum 7 Jan £3,532,102 7.7% £45,733,199

3 The Inbetweeners Movie Entertainment 19 Aug £13,226,055 29.3% £45,030,412

4 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Disney 20 May £11,634,860 35.3% £32,916,214

5 The Hangover Part 2 Warner Bros. 27 May £10,409,017 31.7% £32,833,503

Top 5 total £229,607,843

Comscore

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 was the number

one film of the year, arriving with the biggest opening of the

series and achieving a franchise best lifetime. By the time

Deathly Hallows: Part 2 had finished its theatrical run, the

Harry Potter series had grossed over £440m in the UK and

Ireland across a stellar 10-year run.

Other British efforts completed the top 3, with Colin Firth’s lyrically

challenged monarch in The King’s Speech and four loser

friends on holiday, making fools of themselves in hit tv transfer

The Inbetweeners. Elsewhere Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy came

to the screen with a wealth of local talent in front of the camera;

Richard Ayoade’s oddball coming of age comedy Submarine

found a loyal audience; as did Joe Cornish’s gang meets alien

invasion action comedy Attack the Block; and Johnny English

Reborn brought our top man out of retirement and back into chaos.

love’s a funny thing: ensemble hit comedy Bridesmaids launched Saturday Night Live

favourite Kristen Wiig upon international audiences; Crazy Stupid Love saw the world fall

for Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a fictional couple; and Mia Wasikowska stayed

strong as Jane Eyre, opposite Michael Fassbender’s errant and deceitful Rochester.

Courting controversy alone: Natalie Portman swung between the darkness and the

light in Darren Aronofsky's modern ballet fable Black Swan; Drive saw Ryan Gosling’s

silent, solitary wheelman fight for love as the bodies piled up; Asghar Farhadi’s

devastating account of the lack of women’s rights in Iran, both educated and

distressed audiences when A Separation released; Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller

received heady praise for their warring mother and son, whose battles end in

unthinkable tragedy in Lynne Ramsey’s We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Family fun: there was a lot on offer, in the way of animated hits with Kung Fu Panda 3,

Arthur Christmas, Tangled, Smurfs, Gnomeo and Juliet, Rio, Puss in Boots, The Adventures

of Tin Tin: Secret of the Unicorn as well as live action adventure with Pirates of the

Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Hugo.

19

20

2012

UK lAnDsCAPe

● UK Government debt reaches £1 trillion

for the first time ever

● Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her

Diamond Jubilee, triggering a 4-day

bank holiday weekend

● Royal Navy Commander Sarah West

becomes first British female warship

commander

● London hosts the 2012 Olympic and

Paralympic Games, Team GB win 65

medals and 120 medals respectively,

finishing third in both medal tables

● The last analogue broadcasts are made, as

the UK converts its TV network to fully digital



+3.7% vs. 2011

● 3D accounted for 18% of box office

receipts, a slight drop from last year

● Admissions 172.5m, up 0.5 % vs. 2011


the first year to exceed 600 titles

Sony

● Sony Pictures no.1 distributor with

17.9% market share

ToP 5 Films 2012


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1 Skyfall Sony 26 Oct £20,180,369 19.8% £101,572,493

2 The Dark Knight Rises Warner Bros. 20 Jul £14,362,443 25.5% £56,257,144

3 Marvel Avengers Assemble Disney 27 Apr £15,778,074 30.4% £51,873,408

4 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Warner Bros. 14 Dec £11,601,538 25.8% £44,870,320

5 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 eOne 16 Nov £15,850,825 44.5% £35,602,742

Top 5 total £290,176,107

Comscore

It was a year of GREATS for Britain and there

could only be one film at no.1 to cap it off:

Skyfall - the biggest in the long-running Bond

franchise, the biggest film in the UK & Ireland

ever (until The Force Awakens in 2015) and the

first film to break the £100m box office barrier

on these shores. Well done Mr Bond!

Smart sci-fi: Rian Johnson’s time-jumping

Looper explored the effects of exposure to

violence in childhood and its potentially

unending repercussions; Ridley Scott took us

back before it all began with Alien prequel

Prometheus; Marvel Avengers Assemble gave

Earth’s mightiest heroes their first group outing;

and Christopher Nolan brought his epic Batman

trilogy to a close with The Dark Knight Rises.

Help and happiness: Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper set the world on fire in Silver Linings

Playbook; Channing Tatum’s loosely autobiographical stripper’s tale Magic Mike found rave reviews

and box office alike through Steven Soderbergh’s lens; and French made silent film The Artist swept

the country and awards season off their feet with its magical look at a bygone Hollywood era.

The kids are alright: forthright, practical kids Sam and Suzy flew the coop, chased by parents,

authorities and blood thirsty scouts in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom; 6 year-old Hushpuppy

went in search of family around the fantasy Southern Delta community of The Bathtub in Beasts of

the Southern Wild; and ambition collided with age-old tradition for young archer Merida as she

tried to find her true courage in animated adventure tale Brave.

literary adaptations: whilst the paperbacks of E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey took the year’s

top 3 slots in book sales, books on the big screen made for some of the most interesting and

successful fare. There were outings for The Hobbit, War Horse, Life of Pi and the continuing

Twilight Saga; whilst The Woman In Black, Jack Reacher, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and

Anna Karenina all performed well; as did Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady starring Meryl Streep

as Baroness Margaret Thatcher.

21

22

2013

UK lAnDsCAPe

● UK loses top AAA credit rating for first

time since 1978, being downgraded

by ratings agency Moody’s

● Andy Murray becomes the first British

man to win Wimbledon Singles since

Fred Perry in 1936

● The House of Lords approves the

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill,

enabling gay marriages to take place

in England and Wales from 2014

● Prince George born to the Duke

and Duchess of Cambridge

● British physicist Peter Higgs is

awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics

for his theory of the Higgs boson


Universal


-1% vs. 2012

● 3D accounted for 20% of the box office,

+2% on last year

● Admissions 165.5m, down 4% vs. 2012

● 801 films released in cinemas, the first

year to exceed 800 titles


16.8% market share

ToP 5 Films 2013


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1 Despicable Me 2 Universal 28 Jun £14,822,427 31.2% £47,457,306

2 Les Misérables Universal 11 Jan £8,127,991 20.0% £40,818,299

3 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Warner Bros. 13 Dec £9,325,626 25.0% £37,316,942

4 Iron Man 3 Disney 26 Apr £13,711,048 37.1% £36,965,265

5 The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Lionsgate 22 Nov £12,189,733 36.9% £32,995,876

Top 5 total £195,553,688

Comscore

Despicable Me 2 was

the no.1 film in 2013,

Illumination’s sophomore

instalment of the hit

animation franchise

played well throughout

the summer months. There

were animation sequels

aplenty with Smurfs 2,

Cloudy With a Chance

of Meatballs 2 and

Monsters University all on

release; whilst new kids

Wreck It Ralph, Frozen

and The Croods found

strong first time audiences.

laughter is the best medicine: the wolfpack returned for more high-jinks in The Hangover Part 3; Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy

shone as odd couple cops in the Paul Feig directed The Heat; Anchorman 2 found the Channel 5 News team heading to New York for

24-hour coverage; and Michael Douglas gave a career-best performance as Liberace in Steven Soderbergh’s Behind The Candelabra.

The bigger the better: Superman returned with a more realistic take on Krypton’s favourite son in Man Of Steel; stranded astronaut

Sandra Bullock hurtled through space to save herself in Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug employed high

frame rate 3D to good effect; The Hunger Games: Catching Fire escalated the events and scope of life in Panem after the superb success

of the first film; and Iron Man 3 went all out cool with Shane Black behind the camera and more suits than anyone should probably own.

Films ideal for older audiences: Tom Hooper’s live on-set singing extravaganza Les Misérables won both plaudits and a

huge audience for the scale of its vision and depth of its heart, in particular for Anne Hathaway; Tom Hanks’s Oscar nominated turn as

Captain Phillips, bolstered by director Paul Greengrass’s realistic hand-held direction, made for exciting maritime viewing; racing

legends James Hunt and Niki Lauda faced-off in Ron Howard’s Rush; Dame Judy Dench set out to discover her long lost son with

the help of Steve Coogan in Stephen Frears's Philomena; and Robert Redford sailed solo into troubled waters with All Is Lost.

right on for the darkness: the terrifying true story of paranormal investigators Loraine and Ed Warren made James Wan’s

The Conjuring a huge hit, and started a global horror juggernaut; Jake Gyllenhaal searched for a missing child in Conyers,

Pennsylvania and found more than he bargained for in Prisoners; and the world went mad as zombies got fast in World War Z.

23

2014

UK lAnDsCAPe

● Anarchic actor and comedian

Rik Mayall dies aged 56

● Scotland votes “no” to independence

● London hosts the first ever Invictus

Games at the former Olympic Park

● Events take place across the UK to

commemorate 100 years since the

beginning of WWI

● Britain intervenes in Iraq, in order

to supress jihadist terrorists

24


● UK & EIRE box office total £1.13bn,

-2.9% vs. 2013

● 3D accounted for 14% of the box office

receipts, a considerable drop from 2013

● Admissions 157.5m, -4.9% vs. 2013

● 838 films released in cinemas, the

second year to exceed 800 titles

● 20th Century Fox no.1 distributor

with 21.4% market share

Warner Bros.

ToP 5 Films 2014


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box oFFiCe 2019

1 The Lego Movie Warner Bros. 14 Feb £8,051,140 23.5% £34,330,874

2 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Warner Bros. 12 Dec £9,753,642 29.1% £33,501,962

3 The Inbetweeners 2 Entertainment 8 Aug £12,538,114 37.5% £33,389,244

4 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 20th Century Fox 18 Jul £8,705,995 26.6% £32,717,924

5 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 Lionsgate 21 Nov £12,654,109 41.9% £30,135,359

Top 5 total £164,075,363

Comscore

The Lego Movie landed first

place, with its irreverent take

on everyone’s favourite toy

brand; ursine hijinks came

from Paddington finding a

home in London, after

travelling from darkest Peru;

simian troubles continued in

Dawn of the Planet of the

Apes; and Godzilla was

back to smash stuff up,

whilst saving the planet.

stepping up: Bilbo and co banded together to fight the final evil in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies; Steve Rogers

battled conspiracy and Hyrdra in Captain America: The Winter Soldier; Guardians of the Galaxy took their first flight into

infamy; and meta-history lesson X-Men: Days of Future Past put the mutants right in the thick of 1970s civil rights upheaval.

Quality filmmaking: Richard Linklater charted 12 years of family life with the epoch-defining Boyhood; Wes Anderson

proved Ralph Fiennes can do comedy, in period confection The Grand Budapest Hotel; Damien Chazelle reset the

beat of music dramas with Whiplash; and Lenny Abrahamson helped Domhnall Gleeson find himself for oddball

music comedy Frank.

stranger than fiction: 12 Years a Slave told the true tale of Solomon Northrop, a free black man abducted and

sold into slavery; Alan Turing passed the test and helped win the war in The Imitation Game; and Dallas Buyers Club

looked at the life of Ron Woodroof and his battle against the medical establishment, bringing awards fruit stateside.

A night out for the grown-ups: David Fincher brought Gillian Flynn’s twisty bestseller Gone Girl to the big screen;

Jake Gyllenhaal lost a ton of weight and his moral compass for dark drama Nightcrawler; and DiCaprio got together

with Scorsese to showcase the year’s most despicable, but sympathetic villain in The Wolf of Wall Street.

25

2015

UK lAnDsCAPe

● Singer and zeitgeist wrangler

David Bowie dies at the age of 69

● Libby Lane ordained as the first ever

female Bishop

● Thieves get away with over £200m in

jewels from the Hatton Garden heist

● Princess Charlotte is born to the Duke

and Duchess of Cambridge

● Astronaut Tim Peake is the first Brit in

space in over 21 Years

26



+15% vs. 2015

● 3D accounted for 12% of the box office

receipts, a slight rise on last year

● Admissions 171.9m, +9.2 % vs. 2015

● 853 films released in cinemas, the

third year to exceed 800 titles

● Universal no.1 distributor with

21.4% market share

Sony

ToP 5 Films 2015


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box oFFiCe 2019

1 SPECTRE Sony 26 Oct £41,299,090 43.9% £93,977,502

2 Star Wars: The Force Awakens Disney 17 Dec £34,031,372 39.1% £87,014,628

3 Jurassic World Universal 12 Jun £19,350,727 29.1% £64,497,418

4 Avengers: Age of Ultron Disney 24 Apr £18,256,282 37.7% £48,338,124

5 Minions Universal 26 Jun £11,734,501 24.5% £47,792,780

Top 5 total £341,620,452

Comscore

Bond was still going strong,

as Sam Mendes and Daniel

Craig reunited to take on the

infamous crime organisation

named SPECTRE; Felicity

Jones and Eddie Redmayne

combined physics and the

heart in The Theory of

Everything; Tom Hardy

played both Kray twins to

become Legend; Charlotte

Rampling and Tom

Courtenay uncovered

secrets of 45 Years; and

Maggie Smith was perfectly

cast as Alan Bennett’s

The Lady In the Van.

Drama found many forms: as Carol, Cate Blanchett fell for forbidden love Rooney Mara; 50 Shades of Grey turned

up the heat across the country with Sam Taylor Wood at the helm; the life and times of NWA came to the multiplex in

Straight Outta Compton; and Alex Garland's Ex Machina explored what makes us human.

Finding the funny: Paul Thomas Anderson brought Thomas Pynchon’s 1970s Los Angeles gumshoe to life in Inherent Vice;

Jorgos Lanthimos’s darkly deadpan The Lobster promised reincarnation and love for life; for The Big Short Adam McKay made

the subprime mortgage crisis both relatable and funny; Greta Gerwig showed the road less travelled in Noah Baumbach’s

Mistress America; Amy Schumer tried to get her life back on track as the eponymous Trainwreck; whilst Paul Feig teamed

Melissa McCarthy with Jason Statham for the decade’s must unlikely comedy duo in Spy.

World ending events: Mad Max: Fury Road rebooted the road warrior franchise; hope sprang into existence in Star Wars: The Force

Awakens, as a new generation of heroes and villains were born; Jurassic World travelled back to everyone’s favourite, most perilous theme

park; The Martian saw Matt Damon stranded 34 million miles from home with no good music; Katniss Everdeen’s story came to a close in

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 2, the film also marked one of the final screen appearances for the much missed Phillip Seymour

Hoffman; artificial intelligence caused some problems in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Paul Rudd joined the MCU as Ant-Man.

Hard knock life: The Hateful Eight brought together a band of misfits and could only ever end one way; Fast & Furious 7 raced

to a franchise best whilst saying goodbye to family member Paul Walker; Tom Cruise met his match in Rebecca Ferguson in Mission:

Impossible – Rogue Nation; Jake Gyllenhaal got ripped for boxing drama Southpaw; and Emily Blunt battled the cartel in stark

actioner Sicario.

27

2016

UK lAnDsCAPe

● The Flying Scotsman returns to the tracks

after a 10-year, £4m restoration hiatus

● The general public names Polar research

vessel Boaty McBoatface

● Sadiq Khan named as the new Mayor of

London

● UK votes to leave the EU, David

Cameron resigns, Theresa May is the

new Prime Minister

● The Queen turns 90, becoming Britain’s

longest reigning monarch

28


● Comscore reports a 53-week reporting

year


+1.5% vs. 2015

● Admissions 168.3m, -2.1% vs. 2015

● 900 films released in cinemas, the first

year to exceed 900 titles

● Disney no.1 distributor with 22.6%

market share

Disney

ToP 5 Films 2016


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box oFFiCe 2019

1 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Disney 16 Dec £17,312,188 30.6% £56,429,685

2 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Warner Bros. 18 Nov £15,333,146 29.4% £52,123,818

3 Bridget Jones’s Baby Universal 16 Sep £8,079,585 16.8% £48,061,854

4 The Jungle Book Disney 15 Apr £9,935,570 21.5% £46,235,032

5 Finding Dory Disney 29 Jul £8,157,278 18.9% £42,957,168

Top 5 total £245,807,557

Comscore

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

came out top, depicting how

the Death Star plans were

stolen, prior to the events

of the original Star Wars.

Jon Favreau’s live action

reworking of The Jungle Book

proved just the tonic over

Easter and beyond.

Ghostbusters also came

back, this time with an

all-girl crew of wise

cracking paranormal

adventurers.

britain’s best: Ken Loach’s harrowingly honest I, Daniel Blake took to the streets of Newcastle with an unflinching

gaze; Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them carried the Harry Potter legacy into roaring 1920s New York;

Bridget Jones’s Baby birthed another comedy mega-hit; Edina and Patsy took on the world in the big screen

debut of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie; and Love & Friendship brought acerbic wit to the period piece.

This time it’s war: Earth’s mightiest heroes faced-off against each other for Captain America: Civil War; Ryan Reynolds

brought the fight against decency, in the darkly comic and terrifically violent Deadpool; James Wan turned up the

terror as paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren headed to north London in The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case;

and the caped crusader showed up twice in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad.

Animated antics: The Secret Life of Pets showed us what our furry friends do when we're out all day; there were funny

ocean-bound adventures for Ellen and her fellow denizens of the deep in Finding Dory; animals with a nose for detection

saved the day in Zootrolpolis; Laika travelled to feudal Japan with Kubo and the Two Strings; there were Pacific Island

adventures thanks to Moana; and Japanese high school kids united in dreams in Your Name.

Family strife: there was crazy dad trouble in the hilarious Toni Erdmann; Emily Blunt tried to piece her life together in

dark relationship thriller The Girl on the Train; Hell or High Water saw bank robbing brothers be bad to the bone;

and the found family warmed hearts in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Jim Jarmucsh’s Patterson.

29

30

2017

UK lAnDsCAPe

● Another general election and despite

the Conservative win, there was no

overall majority

● Former James Bond actor Sir Roger Moore

dies aged 89

● OSCAR history made as Warren Beatty

and Faye Dunaway mistakenly

announce La La Land as Best Picture

winner, only to reveal the winner was

actually Moonlight

● UK has Summer heatwave, recording

hottest days in 40 years

● Formal negotiations begin to end

Britain’s membership of the EU



+6% vs. 2016

● Admissions 170.6m, +1.4% vs. 2016

● Distributors invest over £350m+ in

launching their films in the market

● 901 films released in cinemas, up again

from 2016’s record high

Disney

● Disney no.1 distributor, 19.2% market

share

ToP 5 Films 2017


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box oFFiCe 2019

1 Star Wars: The Last Jedi Disney 15 Dec £28,012,263 38.3% £73,180,833

2 Beauty and the Beast Disney 17 Mar £19,677,578 27.2% £72,430,579

3 Dunkirk Warner Bros. 21 Jul £10,056,899 17.7% £56,658,045

4 Despicable Me 3 Universal 30 Jun £11,141,933 23.3% £47,761,904

5 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 Disney 28 Apr £13,146,444 32.1% £41,000,237

Top 5 total £291,031,598

Comscore

The Skywalker story continued at pace in

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, despite the film

dividing audiences seemingly for daring to

be different. Sci fi also got a long-awaited

sequel in Dennis Villeneuve’s bleakly

beautiful Blade Runner 2049, and Caesar

fought the final battle against humanity

in War for the Planet of the Apes.

Beauty & The Beast warmed hearts

across the nation with Emma Watson

and Dan Stevens; The Rock and co got

gamified in Jumanji: Welcome to the

Jungle; whilst death was not far away for

the passengers in Murder on the Orient

Express or the biggest horror of all time It.

The superheroes were at it again: Patty Jenkins skilfully brought the first lady of truth and justice to the

big screen in Wonder Woman; Thor: Ragnarok saw the funny side of the God of Thunder through the

delightfully warped lens of Taika Waititi; X-Men went dark with the 15-cert Wolverine movie everyone

wanted, Logan; Spider-Man: Homecoming saw web-head go all John Hughes from a walk-up in Queens;

and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 brought back the mixtape and the funny, plus some great new

characters.

America shows a different side: Jordan Peele placed white middle class guilt on trial in the hugely

successful Get Out; Willem Dafoe and co toughed it out for upbeat, down at heel Orlando drama

The Florida Project; the world watched a Miami boy grow up in Barry Jenkins’s sublime awards darling

Moonlight; and the Hollywood musical got a 21st century screwball update via La La Land.

british films made for a broad bunch of successes: Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk became the highest

grossing war movie ever; Paddington 2 saw everyone’s favourite bear charming audiences again, despite

the nefarious intentions of Hugh Grant; Armando Iannucci took a swipe at the fall of communism in

The Death of Stalin; and the boys were back together again, though up to no good in T2 Trainspotting.

31

32

2018

UK lAnDsCAPe

● The BBC gender pay row escalates,

as female presenters fight to be paid

the same as their male colleagues

● Big name high street stores Toys R Us

and Maplin go into administration

● Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle

are married

● The Trump Blimp is launched over

London in protest at the state visit

from the current US President

● Peter Stringfellow, Sir Stephen Hawking,

Mark E. Smith and Dale Winton all

pass away



down a negligible 0.2% vs. 2017

● Top 20 films’ share of total box office

at 48%

● Admissions 177m, +3.7% vs. 2017

● 916 films released in cinemas

● Disney no.1 distributor, 22.7% market

share

Disney

ToP 5 Films 2018


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box oFFiCe 2019

1 Avengers: Infinity War Disney 27 Apr £29,699,837 41.9% £70,808,140

2 Mama Mia! Here We Go Again Universal 20 Jul £9,749,277 14.8% £65,591,715

3 Incredibles 2 Disney 13 Jul £9,648,657 17.2% £56,183,595

4 Black Panther Disney 16 Feb £17,701,608 35.0% £50,570,686

5 Bohemian Rhapsody 20th Century Fox 26 Oct £9,527,689 19.9% £47,679,159

Top 5 total £290,833,295

Comscore

Avengers: Infinity War took

the top spot for 2018 with a

franchise record opening

and cliff-hanger ending, so

devastating the world could

barely wait a year to see

how it was all going to turn

out. Black Panther reaped

incredible box office

rewards and 4 weeks at

no.1, as the MCU’s first

outing with an African

American actor front and

centre. There were also other

stand-out superhero turns

with Ant-Man and the Wasp,

Aquaman and Venom, all

bringing in good returns.

Women in front: female led films showed an increasing proliferation in the charts: Viola Davis took the fight to the underworld of

Chicago in Steve McQueen’s grizzly crime drama Widows; Francis McDormand rose to awards glory again in Three Billboards

Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Constance Wu played the dating game in Crazy Rich Asians; Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut

Ladybird covered her semi-autobiographical, yet universal story of growing up and wanting to get away; there were macabre

goings-on for Toni Collette and family in the horribly gripping Hereditary; Emily Blunt fought to keep her unit safe in the

unbearably tense A Quiet Place; whilst Sandra Bullock and co took on the heist genre in all-female sequel Ocean’s 8.

mercurial men: difficult dudes played their part too: Joaquin Phoenix did bad to do good in Lynne Ramsey’s disturbing thriller

You Were Never Really Here; Daniel Day Lewis was fashionably cruel and stylishly punished by Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville

in Phantom Thread; Tom Cruise jumped off just about everything, trying to save an ungrateful world in Mission: Impossible – Fallout;

and Lakeith Stanfield took on the white patriarchy in Oakland, using just a voice in Boots Riley’s Sorry To Bother You.

Top tier animations: homegrown hero Peter Rabbit charmed his way to a mischievous top 10 finish; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

marked the introduction of big budget Hollywood anime and multiple realities; and Wes Anderson tackled Tokyo and canine

adventure with a crowd-pleasing return to stop motion animation in Isle of Dogs.

Pitch perfect: musicals continued to make their mark and proved they could perform strongly at the box office week after week:

Bradley Cooper directed and starred in a remake of A Star Is Born, alongside Lady Gaga; The Greatest Showman (actually released

a few days before the end of 2017) stayed in the top 5 for 13 weeks; and Bohemian Rhapsody topped them all, amassing over

£54m in box office by the end of its epic run.

33

reflections

on 2019

● 2019 was the 3rd biggest

box office year since modern

records began in 1991

● 5th consecutive year box office

surpassed £1.3bn in the UK & Ireland

● Over 176m UK cinema

admissions across the year

● UK & Ireland delivered 4% of

global box office, from less than

1% of the world’s population

34

All box office figures correct as of 3rd Jan 2020

releAse mArKeTs For UK Film DisTribUTors as rights-holders

CinemA ADmissions

(number of visits)

UK 176,054,591 177,001,480 170,616,775

Republic of Ireland 15,109,479 15,775,396 16,117,688

Malta 708,345 795,365 730,457

Total Admissions 191,872,415 193,572,241 187,464,920

Gross box

oFFiCe reCeiPTs

(ticket sales in sterling)

less than £1m

£1m – £10m

over £10m

Comscore

Total box office £1,361,108,847 £1,385,335,761 £1,382,045,378

UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe

2019 2018 2017

2019

(52 weeks)

no. releAses

2019

2018

(52 weeks)

no. releAses

2009

2017

(53 weeks)

UK £1,252,028,076 £1,275,995,839 £1,278,061,020

Republic of Ireland £105,072,754 £104,656,622 £99,827,538

Malta £4,008,017 £4,683,300 £4,156,820

box oFFiCe rAnGe oF CinemA releAses – 20 yeAr TrenDs

Comscore

no. releAses

1999

765 369 312

85% of all releases 73% of all releases 79% of all releases

100 108 71


31 26 13


Comscore

box oFFiCe rAnGe oF UK & irelAnD

CinemA releAses – lAsT 3 yeArs

ToTAl UK/irelAnD box

oFFiCe ACHieveD DUrinG

UK THeATriCAl rUn

no.

releAses

2019

no.

releAses

2018

no.

releAses

2017

£1 - £1,000 33 49 62

£1,001 - £10,000 205 233 218

£10,001 - £50,000 230 202 205

£50,001 - £100,000 86 87 82

£100,001 - £500,000 169 165 156

£500,001 - £1,000,000 42 58 53

£1,000,001 - £4,000,000 70 52 59

£4,000,001 - £7,000,000 17 26 18

£7,000,001 - £10,000,000 13 12 12

£10,000,001 - £20,000,000 16 17 15

£20,000,001 - £30,000,000 6 6 11

£30,000,001 - £40,000,000 3 2 5

£40,000,001 - £50,000,000 2 3 2

£50,000,001 - £60,000,000 1 2 1

£60,000,001+ 3 2 2

Total 896 916 901

Comscore

35

36

biG sCreen enTerTAinmenT

sTill GoinG sTronG

Public screenings of films in

Great Britain can be traced

back as far as the late 19th

century, when silent shorts with

live musical accompaniment,

filmed across the channel in

France by the now legendary

Lumière brothers, were screened

as part of variety shows.

From the introduction of sound

in 1927, and the subsequent

building of huge art deco

picture palaces that immediately

followed, screen and cinema

proliferation continued apace

until WWII. Cinema then

became a huge national

pastime both during the War

and after the fighting stopped.

Although some decline was

inevitable following such

boom years, it was the

sweeping advent of television

increasingly taking hold in

the 50s, 60s and 70s, that

caused some local cinemas

to close or to be chopped up

in order to show more films at

once, serving an audience

with a taste for more variety.

The invention and explosion of

home video in the 80s gave film

fans even more choice and the

industry reacted again with the

age and proliferation of the

multiplex. This pattern of mutual

big and small screen technology

cohabitation continued into

the DVD/Blu-ray era.

Cut to today, and even with

streaming going from strengthto-strength

and the avenues

of portable film consumption

multiplied considerably,

cinema still endures.

With the current glut of fancy

new builds and auditorium

renovations sweeping the

nation, coupled with huge

leaps forward in mass viewing

technology, there’s never been a

better time to go to the movies!

THere’s someTHinG

For everyone

2019 was another year of

bombastic big screen

entertainment. Whilst the market

has seen some polarisation

between tentpole blockbusters

and more independent fare, there

is still so much variety on offer and

the cinema is the place to see it.

Disney Sony Lionsgate

PoPCorn AT THe reADy

Concluding the 42-year, 9 film saga, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, brought

together the series’ remaining heroes for one last hurrah! J.J. Abrams was back

behind the camera to preside over the final adventures of Rey (Daisy Ridley),

Fin (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). The impact of

Star Wars has been keenly felt across the globe for the last four decades, as the

zeitgeist-defining film series reached far outside of movie theatres and directly into

the vein of popular culture, defining big screen entertainment for generations.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was the surprise family hit of the Christmas holiday period

in 2017, grossing an impressive £38.5m in UK & Irish cinemas. Dwayne Johnson, Karen

Gillan, Kevin Hart and Jack Black all returned to the most dangerous game in Jumanji:

The Next Level. With a little help from Dannies Glover and De Vito joining the already

great cast, the family friendly sequel opened almost 30% higher than the previous outing.

Action spectacle couldn’t get much more frenetic or bloody than the fated return

of Keanu Reeves’s legendary lone hitman in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum.

Featuring some of the most inventive fight scenes ever committed to film, director

Chad Stahelski took the audience through the underworld of New York at lightning

speed, as John despatched bad guys one at a time side by side with Halle Berry

and some well-trained gun dogs. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum managed

a franchise high of £10.3m, besting John Wick 2 by a superb 75%.

someTHinG For THe GroWn-UPs

Quentin Tarantino combined his love and

curator’s knowledge of the big and small screens

in his 9th film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Washed-up TV actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo

DiCaprio) and his stunt man best buddy Cliff

Booth (Brad Pitt) cruised the sprawling streets

of Los Angeles in the summer of 1969, as Sharon

Tate (Margot Robbie) lived what appeared to

be her final days, before meeting her death at

the hands of the Manson Family. Filled to the brim

with the most famous modern auteur’s trademark

tropes, a stellar soundtrack and lovingly shot

on 35mm film, OUATIH dominated adult

cinemagoing in the summer, landing Tarantino’s

most successful opening (£5.1m) and highest

grossing film to date in the UK & Ireland

(£21.5m), currently sitting as the 6th biggest

18-cert film of all time.

Rian Johnson brought together a terrific ensemble

cast for Knives Out. His whodunnit homage to the

adored work of Agatha Christie starred Daniel

Craig, Ana de Armas, Christopher Plummer, Jamie

Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Chris Evans

and Michael Shannon. With an unsolved murder,

a quirky detective, a truth-telling nurse, warring

trust fund siblings, a fortune at stake and everyone

Sony Lionsgate Netflix

under suspicion, Johnson pulled the murder

mystery genre firmly into the 21st century,

without losing any of its classic charm and

banking £12.7m in box office in the process.

Martin Scorsese assembled the dream team of

Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel and

Joe Pesci for his most anticipated work in

decades, The Irishman. The epic organised crime

saga garnered a multitude of accolades for its three

central performances, with Pesci in particular singled

out for a career best turn. Scorsese is no stranger to

controversy, his films regularly challenge audiences

with unflinching, unorthodox depictions of violence

and religion, often with a

sympathetic, but highly

despicable lead. With The

Irishman, Scorsese opted

to launch the film through

Netflix and therefore

with a limited/truncated

theatrical release.

As box office returns

were not published, we

can only speculate what

the numbers might be,

yet those who saw the

film in theatres rated it an

exceptional experience,

despite a lengthy

210-minute running time.

37

38

Women in Film

sTrenGTH in nUmbers

Of the top 200 films released in the UK & Ireland

in 2019, 89 had a female lead, yet only 29 were

directed by women. Taking this into the top 20,

the leads drop to 5 and the directors number

just 3. These statistics highlight the realities of

female under-representation in modern cinema.

Distributors are actively attempting to broaden the

reach of their slates, including an ever-widening

range of voices to attract increasingly diverse

audiences.

The Favourite brought together formidable lead

talents Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma

Stone in Yorgos Lanthimos’s bonkers take on the

18th century court of Queen Anne. Colman

played the last of the Stuart monarchs as a

fatuous, spoilt woman-child who couldn’t function

as a human or ruler without her “man at arms”

Lady Sarah, a steely, manipulative performance

by Weisz to rival any Iago or Lady Macbeth.

They exist in some form of happiness until Stone’s

Abigail arrives into the rotting wonderland as a

clever, scheming Alice ready to upset the tea

table. The film deftly explores a gay love triangle

and how it could work in modern England.

The jet black, vicious comedy picked up a raft of

well-deserved awards (see page 42) and found

box office success across the first quarter of 2019.

20th Century Fox Universal Sony

Seasoned Donmar Warehouse director Josie

Rourke chose the famed warring cousins for her

screen debut, Mary Queen of Scots. The film

documented the 16th century feud between sitting

monarch Queen Elizabeth I and north of the

border usurper Mary, portrayed by Margot

Robbie and Saoirse Ronan respectively. Shot on

location in England and the dramatically beautiful

Scottish Highlands, Rourke’s film delved into the

conspiracies and alliances that characterised

the male dominated courts of the time. The film

was nominated for 3 BAFTAS and 2 OSCARS.

Closing out the year was Greta Gerwig’s roundly

adored adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic

novel Little Women. The

March sisters received the

Gerwig creative treatment

and Alcott’s timeless

dialogue (first published

in 1868) sits perfectly

with these modern women

from an unmodern time.

The exceptional cast of

Emma Watson as Meg,

Eliza Scanlen as Beth,

Laura Dern as Marmee

and Meryl Streep as Aunt

March are led by forthright

Jo played by Saoirse

Ronan and Florence Pugh

as the mercurial Amy.

eOne STX Disney

The teen bad behaviour comedy has long been

dominated by the boys. Even in ensemble works like

American Pie, the girls tend to be love interests, window

dressing or mothers. Olivia Wilde reset the clock with her

feature length directorial debut Booksmart. On the cusp

of graduation, best friends Molly (Beanie Feldstein)

and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) realise that they’ve spent

their high school years just working too hard and

attempt to cram four years of partying into one crazy

night. Wilde’s depiction of the hilarious pain of youth

and funny feminism is beautifully realised, set to the

coolest soundtrack of the year by Dan the Automator.

Writer/director Lorene Scafaria brought together a killer

female cast for stripper crime caper Hustlers, featuring

Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, Julia Styles, Cardi B,

Lizzo, Wai Ching Ho, Lili Reinhart and Kiki Palmer.

Based on the article “The Hustlers At Scores” written

by New York Magazine journalist and contributing

editor Jessica Pressler, Scafaria took the normally

male-dominated tropes of the heist and strip club and

turned on the female gaze, as her modern feminist Robin

Hoods ripped-off Wall Street scum bags and cheating

spouses alike. Hustlers saw Lopez give her most lauded

on-screen performance since 1998’s Out of Sight.

Writer/directors Anna Boden and Ryan

Fleck brought Captain Marvel in to land

with the biggest opening and lifetime for

a female fronted superhero movie of all

time, finishing as the 7th biggest film of

the year. Brie Larson’s Captain Carol

Danvers was key to the film’s success

and brought a welcome wit and cool

to Marvel’s ass kicking equivalent to

Superman. Danvers’s abilities also

became integral to the events of the

year’s biggest film Avengers: Endgame.

39

DiversiTy

inClUsion AnD rePresenTATion

If 2018 was a marquee year for the advancement

of inclusion in Hollywood (with far reaching

successes for Black Panther and the establishment

of the inclusion rider), how did 2019 shape up?

Of the top 200 films released in the UK & Ireland

in the last year, 55 had BAME performers in a lead

role and 35 films were helmed by BAME directors.

Looking at the top 20, the leads numbered just

5 and there were no films by BAME directors.

Filmmakers and their distributors are moving

towards ever more inclusive productions and 2019

saw a number of projects released with diverse

ensemble casts go on to deliver strong receipts.

There was big budget spectacle with The Lion King,

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Aladdin; top

quality animation with Abominable and Spies in

Disguise; thoughtful drama in Greenbook, Harriet

and If Beale Street Could Talk; comedy and

romance in Stuber, What Men Want, The Upside,

Little and Last Christmas; plus a multitude of

thrills from 21 Bridges, Hustlers and Ma.

How do you follow a smash hit like Get Out? Go bigger!

Jordan Peele brought the discussion of the haves and the

have nots into the realm of horror and dystopic science

fiction in his disturbing sophomore film Us. Oscar winner

Lupita Nyong’o and Black Panther’s Winston Duke take

their family on a coastal vacation only to be confronted

by ragged, speechless doppelgangers intent on taking

over their lives. Whether viewed as a polemic on 1980s

post-Reganomics fall out, a treatise on imposter syndrome

or an allegory on unfulfilled potential, Us caught the

public’s imagination and became the 2nd highest

grossing horror of the year, behind only It: Chapter 2.

40

Universal Paramount Universal

Writer/director Andrew Onwubolu (South London

MC Rapman) crafted his feature debut

Blue Story based on his own viral web series

Shiro’s Story. Stephen Odubola and Michael

Ward starred as best friends attending the same

school, but hailing from postcodes at war with

one another. Onwubolu’s film brings much

needed focus to the endemic inevitability

of gang warfare in the South East and the

community wrecking violence that travels in its

wake. Blue Story scored well at the box office,

earning over £4.4m in the UK & Ireland.

Producer Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor was also

nominated for Breakthrough Producer at the

2019 BIFAS.

Shanghai-set Dreamworks’ animated story

Abominable starred Chinese American actress

Chloe Bennet as lead character Yi, a young

girl who befriends a lost and lonely yeti, vowing

to reunite the creature with his missing family.

A multicultural cast provided powerful support,

including Albert Tsai, Tsai Chin and James

Hong, depicting modern life and traditional

culture in China’s most populous urban area.

As big budget animation with BAME leads,

Abominable follows in the footsteps of Moana,

Mulan, Coco, Big Hero 6 and The Book of Life.

Barry Jenkins’s follow up to the universally

acclaimed Moonlight saw him adapt James

Baldwin’s 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk.

The story recounted love in the face of injustice,

as Tish (KiKi Layne) comes to terms with her

pregnancy, whilst trying to prove the

innocence of her lifelong friend and now

lover Fonny (Stephan James), incarcerated on

a trumped-up charge. Jenkins’s rich love letter

to both Baldwin and the streets of Harlem was

filled with powerful supporting performances

from Teyonah Parris, Brian Tyree Henry and

OSCAR winner Regina King.

eOne

Universal

Cynthia Erivo portrayed iconic African

American freedom fighter Harriet Tubman

in Kasi Lemmons’s Harriet. The film depicted

Tubman’s daring escape from the Maryland

farm she grew up on as a slave, her guilt at

finding freedom and subsequent transformation

into the hero whose brilliance and tenacity

helped free hundreds from slavery and change

the course of American history. Lemmon’s film

blended the beauty of the American countryside

and its supposed pastoral life with the brutality

of endemic slavery. The supporting cast

included Janelle Monae, Clarke Peters,

Vanessa Bell Calloway and Leslie Odom Jr.

41

AWArDs FoCUs

iT’ll be AlriGHT on THe niGHT

There were surprises aplenty during the 2019

awards season, both here in the UK and across

the pond. For both BAFTA and OSCAR, the

front runners largely fell by the wayside,

making for unpredictable and captivating

nights of gong giving.

The Favourite became just that, as Yorgos

Lanthimos’s 3rd English-language picture picked

up 7 BAFTA’s out of 12 nominations, the Grand

Jury Prize at Venice and an impressive 10 prizes

at the 2018 BIFAS. National treasure Olivia

Colman scooped Best Actress awards on both

sides of the Atlantic (OSCAR and BAFTA) for her

affecting portrayal of Queen Anne declining

into infirmity and senility. Colman also won the

Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion

Picture Comedy or Musical, completing the

trifecta of top trophies, as well as scooping the

Best Actress statue at the Venice Film Festival.

During her BAFTA acceptance speech, Colman

referenced her co-stars Rachel Weisz and

Emma Stone, “This is not for the lead, it’s for a

lead, and as far as I’m concerned, all three of

us are the same and should be the lead, and it’s

weird that we can’t do that. But this is for all

three of us. It’s got my name on it, but we can

scratch in some other names.”

Rami Malek was thought to be the absolute

outsider going into awards season. His

compelling performance as Queen frontman

Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody won

over both the paying public and the judges alike.

Malek won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a

Drama Motion Picture, followed by OSCAR and

BAFTA statues. In his BAFTA acceptance speech,

Los Angeles born Malek thanked the British

42

olivia Colman BAFTA/Guy Levy rami malek

James Veysey/REX/Shutterstock Alfonso Cuarón BAFTA/Guy Levy

public, “It’s quite difficult entering your world

in this role as an outsider. You Brits, you do it

so well, and it’s not lost on me how sacred

your musical heritage is. So, thank you,

thank you, thank you for including me”.

Seasoned Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón

won the Best Director treble (BAFTA, OSCAR,

Golden Globe) for his semi-autobiographical

drama Roma. The film’s distribution via Netflix

caused ructions across the industry due to the

truncated release window and non-sharing

of grosses. Many have called for a systematic

overhaul of the major theatrical awards’ entry

requirements, claiming both OCSAR and BAFTA

have been downgraded to giving awards

for TV movies. Roma scored 10 OSCAR

nominations, a tie with Ang Lee’s Crouching

Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the most nominated

film not in the English language.

Mahershala Ali took home the Best Supporting

Actor triple for his portrayal of piano prodigy

Dr Donald Shirley in Best Picture OSCAR

winner Greenbook. Regina King won the Best

Supporting Actress OSCAR and Golden Globe for

her performance in Barry Jenkins’s adaptation of

James Baldwin’s novel If Beale Street Could Talk.

In the UK, the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress

went to Rachel Weisz for The Favourite.

A standing ovation greeted legendary film editor

Thelma Schoonmaker, as she received the BAFTA

Fellowship Award. Schoonmaker talked fondly of

her long-term collaboration with Martin Scorsese,

a partnership spanning 23 feature films, 3 Best

Editing OSCAR wins (Raging Bull, The Aviator,

The Departed) and 2 Best Editing BAFTA wins

(Raging Bull, Goodfellas). Schoonmaker was only

the 8th woman to receive the Fellowship Award

since its inception in 1971 and is 1 of only 2

standalone editors to be honoured.

43

mahershala Ali Anthony Harvey/BAFTA/REX/Shutterstock rachel Weisz David Fisher/BAFTA/REX/Shutterstock

Thelma schoonmaker

BAFTA/Guy Levy

44

briTisH Films

HomeGroWn HiTs

ToP 15 briTisH Films in CinemAs 2019

Film

DisTribUTor

releAse

DATe

UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 Downton Abbey Universal 13 Sep £28,173,411

2 Rocketman Paramount 24 May £23,359,437

3 Last Christmas* Universal 15 Nov £17,896,279

4 The Favourite 20th Century Fox 4 Jan £16,968,831

5 Yesterday Universal 28 Jun £13,814,307

6 Stan and Ollie eOne 11 Jan £10,567,056

7 Mary Queen of Scots Universal 18 Jan £9,219,726

8 Judy 20th Century Fox 4 Oct £8,096,290

9 Fisherman’s Friends Entertainment 15 Mar £7,441,837

10 Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon StudioCanal 18 Oct £6,950,779

11 Fighting with My Family Lionsgate 1 Mar £5,856,954

12 Blue Story Paramount 22 Nov £4,415,961

13 The Kid Who Would Be King 20th Century Fox 15 Feb £3,737,270

14 Blinded by the Light eOne 9 Aug £3,189,195

15 Horrible Histories:

Altitude 26 Jul £2,873,890

The Movie - Rotten Romans

Top 15 total £162,561,223

* Still on release end of 2019 Comscore

Another strong year for homegrown cinema, delivering

a wide variety of titles. The nation’s interest in biopics

remained strong with 9 of the top 15 British films

based on real life situations/historical figures.

Downton Abbey reigned supreme as the no.1 British

film of 2019, carefully navigating the tricky transfer

from small to big screen. The wildly successful costume

drama secured a very respectable 10th place for 2019

overall, achieving 3rd place in the all-time period

drama list behind Titanic and The King’s Speech.

Dexter Fletcher’s flamboyant fantasy musical Rocketman

played into 2nd place. A hit with audiences and critics

alike. Particular praise went to Taron Egerton for his

powerhouse performance as full tilt diva Sir Elton John.

Last Christmas brought together national treasure

Emma Thompson on writing duties and comedy csar

Paul Feig behind

the camera, with

the much-loved

music of George

Michael. Despite

a slow start

and a critical

mauling, the

film won over

audiences across

the country and

played merrily

leading up to

and throughout

the festive

period.

Universal

eOne Lionsgate Altitude eOne Entertainemnt

Blue Story engaged underserved minority and

teenage cinemagoers with a stark depiction of black

working-class life in South East London and the

territorial rivalries that can destroy communities.

Written, directed and narrated by Rapman (Andrew

Onwubolu), the film garnered critical praise, and

although it faced some challenges in cinemas during

its initial release, a successful theatrical run ensued.

Gurinda Chadha was back behind the camera

for Luton-set music drama Blinded by the Light.

The film focused on Javid, a British-Pakistani

Muslim growing up in Thatcherite Britain. His life

is transformed forever by the music and lyrics

of “The Boss” Bruce Springsteen.

Stephen Merchant’s sports comedy Fighting with

My Family paired our very own Florence Pugh

with the world’s biggest movie star Dwayne

Johnson, documenting the rise of British born

WWE champion Paige from the mean streets

of Norwich to global fame.

Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans

marked the cinema debut of the irreverent

children’s television show, featuring a glittering

band of top British comedy talent.

Our love of music shone through again this year,

with films drawing inspiration from Sir Elton John,

The Beatles, George Michael, Judy Garland and

Bruce Springsteen to name but a few. Feel good

surprise hit Fisherman’s Friends told the story of the

eponymous real-life Cornish trawlermen and their

uneasy transition to music stardom after forming

a local band. Jessie Buckley gained a multitude

of critical plaudits for her star making turn as

struggling country singer Rose Lynn Harlan in

Tom Harper’s heartfelt, toe tapping Wild Rose.

The film received 10 BIFA nominations in 2019.

Timothy Spall & Vanessa Redgrave got to some

family sparring as beloved British artist L.S. Lowry

and his overbearing mother Elizabeth in Mrs

Lowry & Son. Charting their difficult relationship,

Lowry’s talent developed despite Elizabeth’s

constant attempts at dissuasion.

Honor Swinton Byrne fell for calculating

misanthrope Tom Burke in Joanna Hogg’s 4th

feature film The Souvenir. Nominated for 8 BIFAS

in 2019, Hogg’s tale of toxic love and the dark

places often present in close relationships also

featured dynamic support from Tilda Swinton.

Gentrification of the coastal towns of England

drove the narrative of Mark Jenkin’s Cornish

fishing drama Bait. Local fisherman Martin finds

himself without a boat, as it is repurposed as a

tourist vessel by his brother Steven. Displaced

and at war with both the locals and the “down

from London’s” alike, tensions escalate to the

point of tragedy. Shot using clockwork cameras

and on 16mm film stock, Jenkin’s exploration of

past glories, difficult presents and bleak futures,

for both the coast and the fisherman who work it,

collide in an emphatic love letter to the sea.

45

From mArvel To DC AnD beyonD

From ComiC To ConsTAnT

ToP ComiC booK Films in CinemAs 2019

Film oriGin DisTribUTor releAse DATe

UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 Avengers: Endgame Marvel Disney 26 Apr £88,692,771

2 Joker* DC Warner Bros. 4 Oct £57,934,859

3 Captain Marvel Marvel Disney 8 Mar £39,454,224

4 Spider-Man: Far from Home Marvel Sony 5 Jul £37,043,983

5 Shazam! DC Warner Bros. 5 Apr £13,352,785

6 X-Men: Dark Phoenix Marvel 20th Century Fox 7 Jun £7,276,638

7 Hellboy Darkhorse Lionsgate 12 Apr £1,944,291

Top 7 total £245,699,550


46

Once the stock of children’s comic strips, earthly

caped crusaders and their often other-worldly

agitators are now a staple of modern cinema.

In 2019, superhero movies claimed 4 of the top

10 chart places for the year, generating 18% of

the year’s takings from just 7 films. Box office for

the year stands at £251.8m.

mArvel

In April, the Russo Bros. pulled off their 4th

and biggest MCU challenge to date, as their

desperate heroes attempted to undo Thanos’s

great work. Avengers: Endgame brought the

epic 23 movie arc to a powerful crescendo,

achieving the biggest opening of all time in

the UK & Ireland and breaking every ticket

pre-booking record in the process.

Captain Marvel currently sits at no.7 in the MCU

pantheon after landing both the biggest opening

and lifetime for a female fronted superhero movie

(see Women in Film pages 38-39). This big

budget love letter to the 1990s featured

pioneering visual effects technology to make

Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury appear some

30 years younger.

In July, Sony swung Spider-Man: Far from Home

to a franchise best with Tom Holland reprising

his role as the eponymous web-slinging hero.

Peter Parker trades high school hang ups for

continental style on a field trip to Europe, as

he struggles to come to terms with the events

of Endgame and his new-found status as an

Avenger.

At the end of phase 3, the MCU to date has

grossed £1.29bn in the UK & Ireland. Phase 4

kicks off in 2020 with Black Widow in May,

followed by debutant members The Eternals.

With movies planned for Shang Chi, a further

instalment in the Thor franchise and sophomore

efforts from both Black Panther and Doctor Strange,

the MCU looks alive and well and that’s without

mentioning the number of canon shows coming

to the Disney+ streaming service, due for these

shores in March.

DC

October saw DC and Warner go truly dark,

as the most famous and despicable Batman

villain found a new voice in Todd Phillips’s

much-lauded drama Joker. The story of brittle

Arthur Fleck, a forgotten and troubled man rising

from the streets of 1980s Gotham to become

the clown prince of crime, struck a chord

with audiences across the country.

After an unexpected 6 consecutive weeks at no.1

(bested only by Avatar’s 8-week run at the top

a decade earlier), the film sits as the highest

grossing DC title to date and the highest grossing

15-cert film of all time, a trophy previously held

by The Full Monty for some 22 years. Picking up

the Golden Lion in Venice showed early signs

of critical support.

Courting the lighter side of heroism in April

Shazam charmed audiences at Easter. The story

of young teenager Billy Batson, chosen to be

a superhero and fulfilling every kid’s dream

to wield superpowers and a sweet cape,

played well across the holidays.

The last few years have seen the DC Extended

Universe surviving somewhat in the shadow of

Marvel, but the terrain may be about to change.

After a string of strong performing DC titles

(Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Joker even though

it’s not strictly part of the DCEU), there’s a swagger

in the next raft of movies to hit cinemas from the

group. Birds of Prey and Wonder Woman 1984

both have strong female leads and women

behind the camera; The Batman will introduce

Robert Pattinson as the latest titular caped

crusader; 2nd outings are planned for The

Suicide Squad and Aquaman; and Dwayne

Johnson has signed on to both portray and

produce Black Adam.

47

Sony

Warner Bros.

The future of both comic book IP powerhouses

appears safe in Hollywood’s hands, despite

some high profile protesting that these

juggernauts are not true cinema, but a confection

of sorts. Will an MCU minus their key lead

protagonists, Iron Man and Captain America, be

able to stand up to the new vigour of the DCEU?

Could the fight be about to even up a little?

48

AnimATion

DrAWn To sUCCess

ToP 15 AnimATions in CinemAs 2019


UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 Toy Story 4 Disney 21 Jun £66,190,812

2 Frozen 2* Disney 22 Nov £48,466,379

3 How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World Universal 1 Feb £19,828,484

4 The Secret Life of Pets 2 Universal 24 May £19,620,869

5 The Lego Movie 2 Warner Bros. 8 Feb £18,741,019

6 The Addams Family Universal 25 Oct £9,640,871

7 Abominable Universal 11 Oct £8,408,110

8 Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon StudioCanal 18 Oct £6,950,779

9 Angry Birds 2 Sony 2 Aug £5,728,094

10 Wonder Park Paramount 12 Apr £4,705,176

11 Missing Link Lionsgate 5 Apr £3,521,305

12 Spies in Disguise Disney 27 Dec £3,127,048

13 Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun eOne 5 Apr £2,797,833

14 The Queen’s Corgi Lionsgate 5 Jul £2,512,531

15 Paw Patrol: Mighty Pups Paramount 17 May £1,524,592

Top 15 total £221,763,903


Animation accounted for 17% of the overall box office in 2019, bringing in £235.9m (vs. £233.9m in 2018) with 43 new titles released (vs.48 titles in 2018).

Disney’s Toy Story 4 amassed the biggest ever

opening for an animation in the UK & Ireland in

June, only to be bested by their own Frozen 2

in late November. Disney currently hold 6 spots

in the all-time top 10 animation list.

Universal took their first flight with Dreamworks

at the beginning of February, as How to Train

your Dragon: The Hidden World soared in on

a franchise opening high, gliding effortlessly

above the previous launches in the series.

New instalments of much-loved animation capers

released in 2019 included The Secret Life of Pets 2,

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon and

The Lego Movie 2. All generated good returns,

but couldn’t quite match previous glories in

their respective series.

Missing Link continued Laika’s charming

mandate of beautifully quirky, heartfelt stopmotion

storytelling. British director Chris Butler

worked closely with new distribution partner

Lionsgate and an all-star cast led by Hugh

Jackman, to bring Mr Link’s globetrotting

adventures to life. Missing Link brought Laika

their first Golden Globe for Best Animated

feature.

Animated stories for much younger audiences

were also in abundance with Peppa Pig:

Festival of Fun, The Queen’s Corgi, Paw Patrol:

Mighty Pups, Playmobil, Ugly Dolls and

Hey Duggee.

49

Disney Liongate StudioCanal

mUsiCAls

A CHAnGe oF TUne

ToP 15 mUsiCAls in CinemAs 2019

Film

DisTribUTor

releAse

DATe

UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 The Lion King Disney 19 Jul £75,954,242

2 Frozen 2* Disney 22 Nov £48,466,379

3 Aladdin Disney 24 May £37,207,168


5 Yesterday Universal 28 Jun £13,814,307

6 Cats* Universal 20 Dec £9,140,120

7 Judy 20th Century Fox 4 Oct £8,096,290

8 Fisherman’s Friends Entertainment 15 Mar £7,441,837

50

9 Blinded by the Light eOne 9 Aug £3,189,195

10 Wild Rose eOne 12 Apr £2,916,117

11 UglyDolls STX 16 Aug £1,284,170

12 Singin’ in the Rain (Re: 2019) BFI 18 Oct £78,513

13 Charming Blue Finch 2 Aug £75,879

14 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Re: 2019) BFI 6 Dec £56,098

15 Tommy (Re: 2019) BFI 22 Nov £16,102

Top 15 total £231,095,855


After 2018’s stellar year of musicals,

could 2019 match it? A dramatic

rise of 42% announced “yes”, as

Disney claimed the top 3 musical

slots with Jon Favreau’s live action

reshoot of The Lion King,

Guy Ritchie’s hugely popular

reimagining of Aladdin and the

long-awaited animated sequel

Frozen 2.

Paramount secured director Dexter

Fletcher, fresh from his work on

Bohemian Rhapsody, to bring the

early career of Sir Elton John to the

screen in Rocketman. Taron Egerton

took on the colossal challenge of

becoming young Reg Dwight in the

epic musical fantasy charting his

eventful and entertaining rise to

super stardom.

Powerhouse Brit duo Danny Boyle

and Richard Curtis teamed up to

imagine a world in which The Beatles

had never existed in their musical

rom-com Yesterday. Himesh Patel

and Lilly James charmed the

nation right across the Summer,

as struggling singer-songwriter

Jack and his long-suffering best

friend, manager and muse Ellie.

Judy saw Renee Zellweger take

to the stage as the redoubtable

Judy Garland. The film focused

on the winter of 1968, when

America’s musical sweetheart

performed a five-week sold out

show in London’s West End. Judy

has proven to be Zellweger's most

talked about role in years, with her

dramatic physical transformation

into the ageing superstar at the

heart of the conversation.

51

Disney Paramount Universal 20th Century Fox

bollyWooD

more THAn A sonG AnD DAnCe

Bollywood refers to the Mumbai-centred, Hindi language film industry. It is used here as a catch-all term to also include films aimed at the Tamil, Urdu, Punjabi,

Malayalam and Telugu speaking communities in the UK.

ToP 15 bollyWooD Films in CinemAs 2019

Film

DisTribUTor

PrimAry

lAnGUAGe

Genre

releAse DATe

UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 Kalank 20th Century Fox Hindi Drama 19 Apr £981,461

2 Bharat Cinestaan AA Distributors Hindi Drama 7 Jun £913,457

3 War Yash Raj Films Hindi Action 4 Oct £723,039

4 Gully Boy Cinestaan AA Distributors Hindi Drama 15 Feb £647,334

5 Housefull 4 Disney Hindi Comedy 25 Oct £618,199

6 Bigil Sun Media Tamil Action 25 Oct £588,929

7 Dabangg 3* Yash Raj Films Hindi Action 20 Dec £586,678

52

8 Good Newwz* Zee Studios International Hindi Comedy 27 Dec £561,308

9 Total Dhamaal 20th Century Fox Hindi Comedy 22 Feb £529,827

10 Mission Mangal 20th Century Fox Hindi Drama 16 Aug £453,049

11 Chal Mera Putt Rhythm Boyz Entertainment Punjabi Drama 26 Jul £418,506

12 Petta Murugan Talkies Tamil Action 11 Jan £401,082

13 Kesari Zee Studios International Hindi Action 22 Mar £354,518

14 Marjaavaan Eros International Hindi Drama 15 Nov £335,865

15 Dream Girl Zee Studios International Hindi Comedy 13 Sep £317,705

Top 15 total £8,430,957


Whilst Bollywood has seen great returns in

previous years, 2019 saw a significant drop with

the top 15 total falling below £10m for the first time

in a decade, £8.43m (vs. £10.2m in 2018). No

title managed to cross the £1m mark in 2019 with

the year’s numbers falling way below the 2015

peak of the top 15 amassing £13.4m in box office.

As Hollywood answers the call of home streaming

to bolster ailing physical home entertainment sales,

Bollywood is feeling the pinch at the box office.

Most Bollywood movies now have a very short

theatrical window, with titles often available on

streaming services 14-21 days after the first day

of theatrical release. Whilst this has had a positive

effect in reducing film piracy for the sector, it looks

to be driving diminishing theatrical returns.

With the ever-expanding home cinema market

seeing significant reductions in the price and

accessibility of audio-visual equipment, viewers are

often choosing to watch these films on streaming

services. By gathering in groups, the communal

nature of cinema is somewhat re-created in the

comfortable surroundings of home.

This could partially be down to an ageing

population, but there appear to be generational

shifts too. Younger viewers raised on western music

are often keen to skip through the musical numbers

in Bollywood films and at home are able to do so,

shortening generally long sittings significantly.

Historically, strong soundtrack sales for a Bollywood

movie were once a reliable bellwether as to the

film’s popularity and therefore its performance at the

box office. If the tide is turning away from song and

dance in the sector, what will it be replaced with?

Inward investment from star-driven Bollywood

films to the UK production sector is currently

very healthy. That said, with streaming becoming

increasingly popular and multiplex ticket prices often

reduced in key Bollywood sites, the fall in reported

box office looks set to continue. Could admissions

potentially reveal a more telling story?

Epic melodrama Kalank featured an all-star cast

including Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Aditya Roy

20th Century Fox

Kapur, Sonakshi Sinha, Madhuri Dixit-Nene and

Sanjay Dutt. Seasoned Bollywood producer

Karan Johar and prolific writer/director

Abhishek Varman brought together a

complicated love story set against the increasing

turmoil of pre-independence India in 1945.

Also set around the period of India gaining

independence was Bharat, the story of an elderly

shopkeeper recanting his life's tale to his young

granddaughter. Taking 2nd place in the 2019

chart, the sprawling melodrama starred Salman

Khan, Katrina Kaif, Disha Patani and Sunil Grover.

AA Distributors Ltd

53

54

ForeiGn lAnGUAGe

FoUnD in TrAnslATion

ToP 15 ForeiGn lAnGUAGe Films in CinemAs 2019 (excluding bollywood)

Film

DisTribUTor

PrimAry

lAnGUAGe

Genre

releAse

DATe

UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 Pain and Glory 20th Century Fox Spanish Drama 23 Aug £1,528,261

2 Dragon Ball Super: Broly National Amusements Japanese Animation 25 Jan £1,004,156

3 The Farewell Entertainment Mandarin Comedy 20 Sep £922,724

4 Polityka Phoenix Polish Drama 6 Sep £595,132

5 Capernaum Picturehouse Arabic Drama 22 Feb £506,888

6 Everybody Knows Universal Spanish Drama 8 Mar £489,787

7 Kobiety Mafii 2 Phoenix Polish Action 1 Mar £355,315

8 Woman at War Picturehouse Icelandic Drama 3 May £341,155

9 Underdog Phoenix Polish Drama 18 Jan £335,363

10 Monos Picturehouse Spanish Drama 25 Oct £312,987

11 Better Days Magnum Films Mandarin Drama 8 Nov £276,150

12 My People, My Country Guang Hua Media Mandarin Drama 4 Oct £242,256

13 Border MUBI Swedish Drama 8 Mar £224,394

14 Planeta Singli 3 Magnetes Pictures Polish Comedy 15 Feb £217,089

15 Burning Thunderbird Korean Drama 1 Feb £209,432

Top 15 total £7,561,089


Foreign language film has had a few underwhelming years and whilst the market remained a challenge, 2019 saw a 13% rise in box office for the

top 15 titles (vs. £6.51m in 2018).

Pedro Almodóvar topped the foreign language

chart in 2019 with his 21st feature film Pain and

Glory. The story centred around ailing director

Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas), as he

relives significant encounters from his now staid,

comfortable and increasingly colourless life.

Manga’s Dragon Ball Super: Broly, released by

National Amusements, became the 4th Anime

film ever to successfully cross the £1m box office

mark in the UK after Pokemon: The First Movie,

Pokemon: The Movie 2000 and Studio Ghibli’s

Spirited Away.

Chinese/American comedy The Farewell

saw rapper/actor Awkwafina, add to

her scene-stealing turns in Oceans 8 and

Crazy Rich Asians, as the youngest US based

daughter of a family who travel back to China

to visit their ailing yet vibrant grandmother.

55

20th Century Fox National Amusements Entertainment

56

DoCUmenTAry

TrUTH be TolD

ToP 15 DoCUmenTAries in CinemAs 2019


UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 Apollo 11 Dogwoof 28 Jun £1,391,703

2 Diego Maradona Altitude 14 Jun £969,126

3 Amazing Grace StudioCanal 10 May £756,175

4 Pavarotti eOne 19 Jul £723,943

5 Marianne & Leonard: Word of Love Dogwoof 26 Jul £706,230

6 Bring the Soul: The Movie (Concert) Trafalgar 2 Aug £641,444

7 Western Stars Warner Bros. 25 Oct £447,829

8 Liam Gallagher: As It Was Altitude 7 Jun £395,852

9 Hitsville: The Making of Motown Altitude 4 Oct £280,920

10 Apollo 11: First Steps Edition Independent 17 May £203,179

11 For Sama Republic 13 Sep £129,866

12 The Game Changers Cinevents 13 Sep £116,772

13 RBG Dogwoof 4 Jan £115,852

14 Inna De Yard Picturehouse 30 Aug £104,821

15 Maiden Dogwoof 8 Mar £96,116

Top 15 total £7,079,829


105 documentary feature films were released into cinemas in 2019 (vs. 116 in 2018). The genre as a whole was in rude health, grossing £10.4m in box office

(vs. £7.2m in 2018). The breadth of topics was more diverse than ever, engaging audiences with compelling stories and authentic voices in order to educate and entertain.

Dogwoof took the top documentary

spot for the second year in a row

with big screen spectacle Apollo 11

(following their 2018 no.1 success

Free Solo). 50 years in the making,

the film featured never-before-seen

large format footage of the 1969

US mission to land on the moon.

18% of the film’s gross came from

IMAX screens.

The hand of god scored 2nd place,

courtesy of Altitude, as controversial

football legend Diego Maradona

arrived in cinemas via documentary

maestro Asif Kapadia. The film was

assembled from over 500 hours

of unseen footage, charting the

Argentinian’s tumultuous Italian

sojourn with Napoli in the

beautiful game.

3rd was the live recording of

Aretha Franklin’s transcendent

performance at New Bethel

Baptist Church, Watts in 1972.

Amazing Grace became Franklin’s

biggest selling album and the

highest grossing gospel collection

of all time. Shot by Sidney Pollack,

the footage remained uncompleted

for nearly four decades.

For Sama saw Waad Al-Kateab

document 5 years of life in

Aleppo during the Syrian Civil

War, whilst falling in love with

husband-Hamza and giving birth

to daughter-Sama, she kept her

camera rolling no matter what the

situation. The couple faced the

insurmountable choice to flee for

their lives or stay and help the

victims of the war. For Sama swept

the board at the 2019 BIFAs.

57

Dogwoof Altitude StudioCanal Republic

58

reissUes/resTorATions

bACK To THe biG sCreen

ToP 15 reissUes/resTorATions in CinemAs 2019


UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 Elf Park Circus 6 Dec £430,909

2 The Matrix: 20th Anniversary (4K Restoration) Warner Bros. 12 Jul £396,007

3 Apocalypse Now - The Final Cut (2019) StudioCanal 9 Aug £328,596

4 Alien (40th Anniversary) Park Circus 1 Mar £295,354

5 Gremlins (4K Restoration) Warner Bros. 6 Dec £250,634

6 Monty Python’s Life of Brian (40th Anniversary) Trafalgar Releasing 12 Apr £211,463

7 The Great Escape (75th Anniversary) Park Circus 22 Mar £177,236

8 Jaws Park Circus 12 Jul £156,996

9 The Shining Warner Bros. 18 Oct £154,834

10 A Clockwork Orange BFI 5 Apr £140,181

11 Saving Private Ryan (D-Day 75th Anniversary) Park Circus 31 May £97,620

12 The Goonies (4K Restoration) Warner Bros. 19 Apr £92,891

13 Notorious (4K Restoration) BFI 9 Aug £86,847

14 Singin’ In The Rain (Re: 2019) BFI 18 Oct £78,513

15 The Third Man (70th Anniversary) StudioCanal 27 Sep £68,907

Top 15 total £2,966,988


Repertory screenings continued to attract paying audiences in 2019 with the top 15 titles showing an excellent increase of 49% (vs. £1.99m in 2018).

Whether another chance to watch a bona fide classic or to discover a legendary film for the first time, cinemagoers got to experience these restored

features as they were meant to be seen, on the big screen.

Elf joined the elite club of reissued Christmas

cinema classics in 2019 as Buddy the Elf set

out for Manhattan in search of his birth father.

Jon Favreau's heartfelt seasonal comedy will

likely play well for years to come, alongside

hardy yuletide perennials National Lampoon's

Christmas Vacation, Muppet's Christmas Carol,

It’s A Wonderful Life and Die Hard.

The Matrix received a loving 4k polish this

summer, appearing more relevant than ever,

as 1999s sleeper hit turned 20. With iconic

visual effects that still look fresh today and a

thumping soundtrack from the 90s, the time is

right to revisit where it all began with Neo,

Morpheus and Trinity. A new take on the

ultimate cyber punk story is due in 2021.

Francis Ford Coppola landed Apocalypse Now

– The Final Cut, 40 years after an unfinished

print of his now classic Vietnam war movie

won the Palme D’or at Cannes. Accompanied

by a recorded q&a with the famed director and

Dolby Atmos sound where available, audiences

became even more immersed in Captain

Willard’s journey into the heart of darkness.

Park Circus

Warner Bros.

StudioCanal

59

The broad range of reissues in 2019 also included The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Passenger, Don’t Look Now, 50th anniversary of The Italian Job,

30th anniversary of Do the Right Thing and a Stanley Kubrick retrospective, which featured A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut among others.

60

evenT CinemA

All THe WorlD’s A sTAGe

Just a few years ago, Event Cinema was in its infancy

and better known as Alternative Content. It is now a

staple of the cultural calendar, affording cinemagoers

the opportunity to see live performances of theatre,

ballet, opera, concerts and even exhibitions for a

reasonable price at their local cinema.

2019 saw the highest returns to date for Event Cinema

in the UK & Ireland, amassing an unprecedented

£53.7m (vs. £41.3m in 2018), up an excellent

30% on 2018’s already record-breaking take and

accounting for 4% of the year’s total box office.

The overall Event Cinema total figures include

Secret Cinema Box Office for 2019 and 2018,

£8.43m and £8.13m respectively.

Many records were broken across the year including:

● 11 titles surpassed £1m in box office (vs. 4 in 2018)

● September brought over £7m in box office,

making it the leading month for Event Cinema ever

● National Theatre Live’s Fleabag grossed over

£4.3m, placing it as the biggest event cinema

release of all time with a huge 56% of its

revenue coming from encore screenings

● Les Misérables: The Staged Concert live stream

event in December took £2.3m in one night,

making it the highest grossing one-night live

event performance to date

evenT CinemA TrenDs (excluding secret Cinema)

evenT

CinemA TrenDs

2019 2018 2017

no. releases 129 125 134

box office £45,262,251 £33,135,689 £30,462,449

% of year’s

box office

3.3% 2.4% 2.2%

Top 3 titles

Fleabag

Les Misérables:

The Staged Concert

Take That:

Greatest Hits Live

ToP 5 evenT CinemA (excluding secret Cinema)

Andre Rieu's 2018

Maastricht Concert

The King & I: London

Palladium

Cliff Richard Live:

60th Anniversary

Andre Rieu's 2017

Maastricht Concert

Follies

The Nutcracker

1 Fleabag - NT Live 2019 (Theatre) National Theatre 6 Sep £4,332,701

2 Les Misérables: The Staged Concert Universal 29 Nov £3,260,571

3 Take That - Greatest Hits Live (Concert) Cinema Live 7 Jun £2,087,617

4

5

Film

Andre Rieu’s 2019 New Year

Concert From Sydney (Concert)

Andre Rieu 2019 Maastricht Concert

- Shall We Dance? (Concert)

DisTribUTor

releAse

DATe

Piece of Magic 4 Jan £1,933,773

Piece of Magic 26 Jul £1,803,289

Total top 5 £13,417,951

Comscore

UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

Comscore

Phoebe Waller Bridge brought her critically

acclaimed one woman show Fleabag back to

the stage and into cinemas, scoring the biggest

lifetime of any non-Secret Cinema event release

and the first to cross the £4m mark. NT Live’s

own Hamlet (starring Benedict Cumberbatch

released in 2017) was pushed into 2nd place.

One of the world’s most popular musicals,

Les Misérables has been seen by over 120

million people across the globe. Les Misérables:

The Staged Concert celebrated the 35th

anniversary of the musical’s run in the West End,

becoming the highest grossing one-night live

Event Cinema performance to date.

Take That - Greatest Hits Live set pulses

racing and records breaking as the boys

came back together and into cinemas.

The concert was the highest grossing

music Event Cinema release of any

type (rock, pop or classical) to date

and the first to cross the £2m mark.

61

National Theatre

Universal

Cinemalive

seCreT CinemA TrenDs

Sony

Warner Bros.

seCreT

CinemA

2019 2018 2017

no. releases 1 2 1

box office £8,433,970 £8,131,403 £4,484,897

% of year’s

box office

0.6% 0.6% 0.4%

Titles

Casino

Royale

Romeo

& Juliet

Bladerunner -

The Final Cut

Moulin

Rouge

Comscore

62

Secret Cinema has come a long way since their first screenings

in 2007. 2019 saw them embark on their boldest mission yet:

re-imagining the world of 007 around Daniel Craig’s first Bond

outing Casino Royale. Grossing an impressive £8.4m across

the event’s 18 week run, the team then took the show to Shanghai

and have been selling out since day one. The Bond film franchise

is the longest running in cinema history spanning near 60 years

and has amassed a huge $16.3bn globally adjusted for inflation

(unadjusted $6.9bn).

Disney recently announced a partnership with Secret Cinema

to work together on immersive film tie-in experiences, with

speculation rife as to whether this will include titles from the

Star Wars and Marvel Universes.

20th Century Fox

Disney

PremiUm FormATs

biGGer, ComFier, more APPeAlinG

no. releases by format 26 37 13

Total format box office £33,184,762 £14,790,613 £15,077,373

Top 3 releases by format

Disney

2019 DiGiTAl 3D imAx imAx 3D

Avengers: Endgame Joker Avengers: Endgame

Once Upon a Time Star Wars:

The Lion King

in Hollywood The Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars:

Star Wars:

Captain Marvel

The Rise of Skywalker The Rise of Skywalker

Comscore

Film continues to be the most ardent representation

of the collision between art and commerce and

nowhere else is this categorically proven than at

the cinema. As our society becomes increasingly

time poor, exhibitors and distributors are working

to make cinema even more appealing as a

primary leisure choice.

Premium formats (listed above) accounted for

£63m box office in 2019 (vs. £69.9m in 2018),

claiming 5% of the overall UK & Irish box office

(vs. 6% in 2018).

Imax made significant strides forward with their

2D releases (vs. £11.7m in 2018), but saw a

small dip in 3D revenues (vs. £16.3m in 2018).

Standard 3D releases saw the biggest fall

year-on-year (vs. £42.4m in 2018), though still

produced the highest yield of all the large

screen formats due to the proliferation of screens.

The jury is still out on HFR 3D (High Frame Rate),

and whilst it attracts big ticket visionary filmmakers

like Peter Jackson and Ang Lee, perhaps the

public isn’t quite ready for that level of reality.

With THX and Dolby entering the in-theatre

experience in an increasingly meaningful way,

4DX cementing an already sturdy footprint and

several exhibitors maintaining their own brand

premium large format screens to good effect, the

future of cinema as a spectacle and a unique out

of home viewing experience, looks set fair.

That shared experience is paramount, whether it’s

big picture and sound, great service, a glass of

wine with your movie or dining in your reclining

seat. The exhibition sector is in something of a

transition with existing theatres and new builds

alike being upgraded across the country to

include more luxury seating and increasingly

sophisticated food and drink offers.

Many patrons will happily pay a premium,

be it for wow factor screens and sound or

supreme comfort. That said, overall value for

money is another audience differential, with

cinema loyalty schemes and dynamic pricing

encouraging more frequent visits by regular to

heavy cinemagoers. A broad range of offers

and promotions stimulates footfall, the most

popular being the long running joint industry

initiative Meerkat Movies, which has produced

over 17m ticket redemptions and delivered

34m total admissions since its inception in 2015.

63

64

Horror

sCArinG UP A sTorm

ToP 15 Horrors in CinemAs 2019


UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019

1 It: Chapter Two Warner Bros. 6 Sep £18,918,529

2 Us Universal 22 Mar £9,910,961

3 Annabelle Comes Home Warner Bros. 12 Jul £6,623,675

4 Pet Sematary Paramount 5 Apr £4,227,568

5 Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep Warner Bros. 1 Nov £3,301,195

6 Midsommar Entertainment 5 Jul £2,737,533

7 Escape Room Sony 1 Feb £2,561,624

8 Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark eOne 23 Aug £2,283,507

9 Ready or Not 20th Century Fox 27 Sep £1,983,994

10 Ma Universal 31 May £1,592,239

11 The Curse of La Llorona Warner Bros. 3 May £1,588,307

12 Happy Death Day 2U Universal 15 Feb £1,535,360

13 Countdown STX 25 Oct £1,458,480

14 Crawl Paramount 23 Aug £1,379,325

15 BrightBurn Sony 21 Jun £911,396

Top 15 total £61,013,693


Horror has long been a stalwart of the theatrical calendar, with audiences keen to be terrified and entertained by the disturbing and the macabre. In 2019, the

genre pulled in box office of over £67m from just 34 titles (vs. £60m and 46 titles in 2018) a rise of over 13% year on year. It was an inventive time of terror

encompassing killer clowns, marauding doppelgangers, undead pets, possessed dolls and huge, hungry alligators.

sometimes they come back! Stephen King’s horror

legacy remained strong in 2019, with three adaptations

of his work in the genre top 5. The kids came back

to Derry, Maine one more time to finally put pay to

Pennywise in It: Chapter 2, the 2nd highest horror

bow of all time; Pet Sematary got a new lease of life

with a creepy re-imagining of the backwater where

nothing stays dead and buried for long; and it was

back to The Overlook for Danny as Ewan McGregor

and Rebecca Ferguson did battle for the soul of

Kyleigh Curran almost 40 years after that terrible

winter, in Doctor Sleep, the long-awaited sequel

to Kubrick’s horror masterpiece The Shining.

Warner Bros.

Paramount

Warner Bros.

In 2018, Ari Aster caused a

terrific stir with his deeply

disturbing debut feature

Hereditary. In 2019, he tackled

grief, mental health and modern

relationships in the allegorical

and darkly comic Midsommar.

Florence Pugh played recently

bereaved and barely holding

it together Dani, who tags

along on her soon to be

ex-boyfriend’s anthropological

field trip to perpetually sunny

Sweden, only to be met by

weird and increasingly horrific

scenarios as her sanity is

tested to its limits.

Entertainment

Annabelle Comes

Home marked the

3rd instalment in the

well-received trilogy

featuring the creepy

doll with supernatural

abilities. More

significantly, Annabelle

is a key ingredient in

New Line’s crazily

successful Conjuring

Universe. From just

7 films, the group

has banked over

$1.9bn worldwide

off of a combined

production budget

of less than $150m.

Warner Bros.

65

66

ToP 100 Films in UK & irelAnD CinemAs 2019

Film DisTribUTor releAse

DATe

UK/irelAnD oPeninG

WeeKenD box oFFiCe

(inCl. PrevieWs)

UK/irelAnD

oPeninG WeeKenD

(As% oF liFeTime)

ToTAl UK/ irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019e

(4 JAn ‘19 To 2 JAn ‘20)

1 Avengers: Endgame Disney 26 Apr £43,442,005 49.0% £88,692,771

2 The Lion King Disney 19 Jul £16,707,864 22.0% £75,957,864

3 Toy Story 4 Disney 21 Jun £13,263,771 20.0% £66,219,765

Top 3 films

4 Joker Warner Bros. 4 Oct £12,570,570 21.7% £57,934,859

5 Frozen 2 Disney 22 Nov £15,179,398 31.3% £48,466,379

6 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Disney 20 Dec £20,856,851 44.4% £46,937,619

7 Captain Marvel Disney 8 Mar £12,711,157 32.2% £39,454,224

8 Aladdin Disney 24 May £7,080,886 19.0% £37,207,168

9 Spider-Man: Far from Home Sony 5 Jul £14,173,986 38.3% £37,043,983

10 Downton Abbey Universal 13 Sep £5,197,546 18.4% £28,173,411

Top 10 films

11 Jumanji: The Next Level Sony 13 Dec £9,487,398 37.4% £25,392,211

12 Dumbo Disney 29 Mar £6,144,295 24.4% £25,141,513

13 Rocketman Paramount 24 May £5,344,630 22.9% £23,359,437

14 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Sony 16 Aug £7,560,087 35.5% £21,293,340

5 Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw Universal 2 Aug £6,378,669 31.2% £20,455,139

16 How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World Universal 1 Feb £5,333,076 26.9% £19,828,484

17 The Secret Life of Pets 2 Universal 24 May £3,483,943 17.8% £19,620,869

18 It: Chapter Two Warner Bros. 6 Sep £7,374,581 39.0% £18,918,529

19 The Lego Movie 2 Warner Bros. 8 Feb £4,014,491 21.4% £18,741,019

20 Last Christmas Universal 15 Nov £2,673,756 14.9% £17,896,279

Top 20 films

1 to 20

£230,870,400

17% of 2019 total box office

£526,088,043


£736,734,862




DATe

UK/irelAnD oPeninG

WeeKenD box oFFiCe

(inCl. PrevieWs)

UK/irelAnD

oPeninG WeeKenD

(As% oF liFeTime)

ToTAl UK/ irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019e

(4 JAn ‘19 To 2 JAn ‘20)

21 The Favourite 20th Century Fox 4 Jan £3,970,541 23.4% £16,968,831

22 Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Disney 18 Oct £3,286,989 22.5% £14,624,046

23 Yesterday Universal 28 Jun £2,212,766 16.0% £13,814,307

24 Pokemon Detective Pikachu Warner Bros. 10 May £4,945,370 35.8% £13,794,635

25 Shazam! Warner Bros. 5 Apr £4,076,368 30.5% £13,352,785

26 Knives Out Lionsgate 29 Nov £2,938,957 26.5% £11,077,067

27 Glass Disney 18 Jan £3,432,085 31.3% £10,979,867

28 Instant Family Paramount 15 Feb £2,473,371 23.3% £10,628,694

29 Stan and Ollie eOne 11 Jan £2,576,047 24.4% £10,567,056

30 John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum Lionsgate 17 May £3,564,699 34.3% £10,386,215

31 Green Book eOne 1 Feb £1,674,192 16.5% £10,126,829

32 Us Universal 22 Mar £2,789,829 28.1% £9,910,961

33 The Addams Family Universal 25 Oct £2,125,591 22.0% £9,640,871

34 Alita: Battle Angel 20th Century Fox 8 Feb £3,196,105 34.5% £9,271,979

35 Mary Queen of Scots Universal 18 Jan £2,083,256 22.6% £9,219,726

36 Cats Universal 20 Dec £3,207,179 35.1% £9,140,120

37 Abominable Universal 11 Oct £2,142,344 25.5% £8,408,110

38 Judy 20th Century Fox 4 Oct £2,086,881 25.8% £8,096,290

39 Hustlers STX 13 Sep £1,354,790 17.8% £7,615,381

40 Angel Has Fallen Lionsgate 23 Aug £2,123,190 28.4% £7,479,976

41 Fisherman’s Friends Entertainment 15 Mar £1,162,358 15.6% £7,441,837

42 Terminator: Dark Fate Disney 25 Oct £2,867,175 39.2% £7,318,031

43 X-Men: Dark Phoenix 20th Century Fox 7 Jun £3,770,152 51.8% £7,276,638

44 Godzilla: King of the Monsters Warner Bros. 31 May £3,490,911 50.2% £6,952,093

45 Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon StudioCanal 18 Oct £1,311,727 18.9% £6,950,779

46 Men in Black International Sony 14 Jun £2,828,511 42.2% £6,699,047

47 Dora and the Lost City of Gold Paramount 16 Aug £1,166,057 17.5% £6,671,292

48 Annabelle Comes Home Warner Bros. 12 Jul £2,225,627 33.6% £6,623,675

49 Little Women Sony 27 Dec £3,604,140 55.3% £6,522,783

50 Ad Astra 20th Century Fox 20 Sep £2,261,910 36.6% £6,174,211

Top 50 films

21 to 50

£1,020,468,994


Comscore

67

68



DATe

UK/irelAnD oPeninG

WeeKenD box oFFiCe

(inCl. PrevieWs)

UK/irelAnD

oPeninG WeeKenD

(As% oF liFeTime)

51 to 75

ToTAl UK/ irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019e

(4 JAn ‘19 To 2 JAn ‘20)

51 Le Mans ‘66 Disney 15 Nov £1,967,956 32.1% £6,121,884

52 Fighting with My Family Lionsgate 1 Mar £2,023,480 34.5% £5,856,954

53 Angry Birds 2 Sony 2 Aug £695,043 12.1% £5,728,094

54 Gemini Man Paramount 11 Oct £1,718,837 36.3% £4,732,592

55 Wonder Park Paramount 12 Apr £1,585,100 33.7% £4,705,176

56 Zombieland: Double Tap Sony 18 Oct £1,241,643 27.6% £4,496,144

57 Blue Story Paramount 22 Nov £1,315,712 29.8% £4,415,961

58 Pet Sematary Paramount 5 Apr £1,556,183 36.8% £4,227,568

59 Vice eOne 25 Jan £1,320,140 31.9% £4,135,650

60 The Good Liar Warner Bros. 8 Nov £962,205 24.9% £3,858,057

61 The Kid Who Would Be King 20th Century Fox 15 Feb £665,508 17.8% £3,737,270

62 Missing Link Lionsgate 5 Apr £648,285 18.4% £3,521,305

63 The Hustle Universal 10 May £1,038,322 30.4% £3,416,328

64 Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep Warner Bros. 1 Nov £1,446,351 43.8% £3,301,195

65 Good Boys Universal 16 Aug £845,665 26.4% £3,207,735

66 Blinded by the Light eOne 9 Aug £967,192 30.3% £3,189,195

67 Spies in Disguise Disney 27 Dec £1,489,717 47.6% £3,127,048

68 What Men Want Paramount 15 Mar £836,369 27.4% £3,053,587

69 Wild Rose eOne 12 Apr £771,929 26.5% £2,916,117

70 Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans Altitude 26 Jul £610,182 21.2% £2,873,890

71 Rambo: Last Blood Lionsgate 20 Sep £1,075,210 37.9% £2,835,987

72 Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun eOne 5 Apr £985,923 35.2% £2,797,833

73 Red Joan Lionsgate 19 Apr £433,964 15.7% £2,764,600

74 Midsommar Entertainment 5 Jul £810,680 29.6% £2,737,533

75 Escape Room Sony 1 Feb £820,713 32.0% £2,561,624



DATe

UK/irelAnD oPeninG

WeeKenD box oFFiCe

(inCl. PrevieWs)

UK/irelAnD

oPeninG WeeKenD

(As% oF liFeTime)

ToTAl UK/ irelAnD

box oFFiCe 2019e

(4 JAn ‘19 To 2 JAn ‘20)

76 The Queen’s Corgi Lionsgate 5 Jul £521,817 20.8% £2,512,531

77 Long Shot Lionsgate 3 May £856,367 34.2% £2,505,465

78 Colette Lionsgate 11 Jan £789,226 31.5% £2,504,479

79 Official Secrets eOne 18 Oct £538,824 22.9% £2,356,075

80 Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark eOne 23 Aug £617,306 27.0% £2,283,507

81 The Upside STX 11 Jan £681,607 30.8% £2,213,066

82 Can You Ever Forgive Me? 20th Century Fox 1 Feb £519,049 23.6% £2,197,562

83 A Dog’s Way Home Sony 25 Jan £707,080 32.6% £2,168,634

84 The Mule Warner Bros. 25 Jan £724,567 34.3% £2,111,851

85 Midway Lionsgate 8 Nov £754,815 37.2% £2,031,567

86 Ready or Not 20th Century Fox 27 Sep £952,689 48.0% £1,983,994

87 Cold Pursuit StudioCanal 22 Feb £633,475 31.9% £1,983,222

88 The Aftermath 20th Century Fox 1 Mar £595,857 30.5% £1,955,807

89 Hellboy Lionsgate 12 Apr £990,027 50.9% £1,943,950

90 Little Universal 12 Apr £541,065 28.7% £1,882,193

91 Tolkien 20th Century Fox 3 May £554,382 30.6% £1,813,285

92 The Aeronauts eOne 8 Nov £1,043,217 58.3% £1,789,138

93 21 Bridges STX 22 Nov £655,709 39.5% £1,661,466

94 Ma Universal 31 May £509,892 32.0% £1,592,239

95 The Curse of La Llorona Warner Bros. 3 May £609,733 38.4% £1,588,307

96 On the Basis of Sex eOne 22 Feb £459,808 29.1% £1,582,672

97 If Beale Street Could Talk eOne 8 Feb £253,305 16.0% £1,581,994

98 Playing with Fire Paramount 27 Dec £763,398 48.9% £1,560,348

99 Happy Death Day 2U Universal 15 Feb £735,455 47.9% £1,535,360

100 Pain and Glory 20th Century Fox 23 Aug £320,832 21.0% £1,528,261

Top 100 films

76 to 100

£1,163,655,294


Comscore

69

70

THe no.1’s

oF 2019 26

films achieved the top spot in the weekly box office charts in 2019 (vs. 33 in 2018 and 31 in 2017).

Just 11 releases held the spot for a single week, 8 for 2 weeks, 5 for 3 weeks and 1 for 4 weeks. Joker stayed at the top for 6 weeks.

WeeK

oF

releAse

rePorTeD

CinemA

loCATions in

UK/irelAnD

WeeKenD

2019

no.1 Film

DisTribUTor

4 Jan Mary Poppins Returns Disney 3 718

11 Jan Stan and Ollie eOne 1 654

18 Jan Glass Disney 1 559

25 Jan Glass Disney 2 559

1 Feb

How to Train your Dragon:

Universal

The Hidden World 1 556

8 Feb The Lego Movie 2 Warner Bros. 1 572



1 Mar Fighting with My Family Lionsgate 1 573

8 Mar Captain Marvel Disney 1 655



29 Mar Dumbo Disney 1 666

5 Apr Shazam! Warner Bros. 1 599

12 Apr Dumbo Disney 3 697

19 Apr Shazam! Warner Bros. 3 612

26 Apr Avengers: Endgame Disney 1 679

3 May Avengers: Endgame Disney 2 677

10 May Pokemon Detective Pikachu Warner Bros. 1 579

17 May

John Wick: Chapter 3

Lionsgate

- Parabellum 1 542

24 May Aladdin Disney 1 642

31 May Aladdin Disney 2 645

7 Jun Aladdin Disney 3 654

14 Jun Aladdin Disney 4 656

21 Jun Toy Story 4 Disney 1 688

WeeKenD

no.1 Film

DisTribUTor

WeeK

oF

releAse

rePorTeD

CinemA

loCATions in

UK/irelAnD

2019

28 Jun Toy Story 4 Disney 2 691

5 Jul Spider-Man: Far from Home Sony 1 635

12 Jul Spider-Man: Far from Home Sony 2 647

19 Jul The Lion King Disney 1 713

26 Jul The Lion King Disney 2 721

2 Aug Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw Universal 1 614

9 Aug The Lion King Disney 4 714

16 Aug Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Sony 1 663

23 Aug Angel Has Fallen Lionsgate 1 537

30 Aug Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Sony 3 697

6 Sep It: Chapter Two Warner Bros. 1 652

13 Sep Downton Abbey Universal 1 728



4 Oct Joker Warner Bros. 1 666




1 Nov Joker Warner Bros. 5 639

8 Nov Joker Warner Bros. 6 601

15 Nov Last Christmas Universal 1 612

22 Nov Frozen 2 Disney 1 671

29 Nov Frozen 2 Disney 2 674

6 Dec Frozen 2 Disney 3 676

13 Dec Jumanji: The Next Level Sony 1 637

20 Dec Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Disney 1 740

27 Dec Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Disney 2 741

Comscore

ToP 15

oPeninG

WeeKenDs

in UK &

irelAnD

CinemAs

2019

UK & irelAnD

CinemAGoinG

by CerTiFiCATe


oPeninG WeeKenD UK/irelAnD

box oFFiCe (inCl. PrevieWs)

1 Avengers: Endgame Disney 26 Apr £43,442,005

2 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Disney 20 Dec £20,856,851

3 The Lion King Disney 19 Jul £16,707,864

4 Frozen 2 Disney 22 Nov £15,179,398

5 Spider-Man: Far from Home Sony 5 Jul £14,173,986

6 Toy Story 4 Disney 21 Jun £13,263,771

7 Captain Marvel Disney 8 Mar £12,711,157

8 Joker Warner Bros. 4 Oct £12,570,570

9 Jumanji: The Next Level Sony 13 Dec £9,487,398

10 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Sony 16 Aug £7,560,087

11 It: Chapter Two Warner Bros. 6 Sep £7,374,581

12 Aladdin Disney 24 May £7,080,886

13 Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw Universal 2 Aug £6,378,669

14 Dumbo Disney 29 Mar £6,144,295


2019

no CerT

no. releases 66 116 298 355 36 25 896

% releases 7.4% 12.9% 33.3% 39.6% 4.0% 2.8% 100%

box office £211,481,881 £284,992,525 £473,524,075 £296,102,812 £30,825,619 £406,117 £1,297,333,029

% box office 16.3% 22.0% 36.5% 22.8% 2.4% - 100%

ToTAl

Comscore

71

2018

no. releases 62 136 318 348 44 14 922

% releases 6.7% 14.8% 34.5% 37.7% 4.8% 1.5% 100%

box office £114,907,468 £324,287,111 £527,553,383 £295,471,974 £33,982,934 £124,903 £1,296,327,773

% box office 8.9% 25% 40.7% 22.8% 2.6% - 100%

Comscore

ToP 50 All-Time Films in UK & irelAnD CinemAs

1 to 25

Film DisTribUTor releAse DATe ToTAl UK/irelAnD box oFFiCe 2019

72

1 Star Wars: The Force Awakens Disney 18 Dec 2015 £123,233,061

2 Skyfall Sony 26 Oct 2012 £103,218,773

3 SPECTRE Sony 30 Oct 2015 £95,200,787

4 Avatar 20th Century Fox 18 Dec 2009 £94,025,632

5 Avengers: Endgame Disney 26 Apr 2019 £88,692,771

6 Star Wars: The Last Jedi Disney 15 Dec 2017 £82,659,680

7 The Lion King Disney 19 Jul 2019 £75,953,999

8 Toy Story 3 Disney 23 Jul 2010 £74,087,993

9 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Warner Bros. 15 Jul 2011 £73,135,472

10 Beauty and the Beast Disney 17 Mar 2017 £72,430,579

11 Avengers: Infinity War Disney 27 Apr 2018 £70,808,140

12 Mamma Mia! Universal 11 Jul 2008 £68,799,176

13 Toy Story 4 Disney 21 Jun 2019 £66,190,228

14 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Disney 16 Dec 2016 £66,013,076

15 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Warner Bros. 16 Nov 2001 £65,614,450

16 Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Universal 20 Jul 2018 £65,526,799

17 Jurassic World Universal 12 Jun 2015 £64,494,666

18 Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings Entertainment 21 Dec 2001 £63,009,288

19 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Entertainment 19 Dec 2003 £61,062,348

20 Joker * Warner Bros. 4 Oct 2019 £57,880,096

21 Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Entertainment 20 Dec 2002 £57,631,125

22 Dunkirk Warner Bros. 21 Jul 2017 £56,758,352

23 The Dark Knight Rises Warner Bros. 20 Jul 2012 £56,257,144

24 Incredibles 2 Disney 13 Jul 2018 £56,159,264

25 Casino Royale Sony 17 Nov 2006 £55,600,009

ToP 50 All-Time Films in UK & irelAnD CinemAs

26 to 50

Film DisTribUTor releAse DATe ToTAl UK/irelAnD box oFFiCe 2019

26 Bohemian Rhapsody 20th Century Fox 26 Oct 2018 £55,016,834

27 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Warner Bros. 15 Nov 2002 £54,780,731

28 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Warner Bros. 18 Nov 2016 £54,703,625

29 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest Disney 7 Jul 2006 £52,515,550

30 Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 Warner Bros. 19 Nov 2010 £52,479,311

31 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Warner Bros. 14 Dec 2012 £52,329,481

32 Marvel Avengers Assemble Disney 27 Apr 2012 £51,892,180

33 Quantum of Solace Sony 31 Oct 2008 £51,216,877

34 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Warner Bros. 17 Jul 2009 £50,723,508

35 Black Panther Disney 16 Feb 2018 £50,570,686

36 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Warner Bros. 13 Jul 2007 £49,874,480

37 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Warner Bros. 18 Nov 2005 £49,196,228

38 The Dark Knight Warner Bros. 25 Jul 2008 £49,074,220

39 The Greatest Showman 20th Century Fox 29 Dec 2017 £48,896,042

40 Avengers: Age of Ultron Disney 24 Apr 2015 £48,339,121

41 Bridget Jones’s Baby Universal 16 Sep 2016 £48,253,632

42 Shrek 2 UIP 2 Jul 2004 £48,243,628

43 Despicable Me 3 Universal 30 Jun 2017 £47,895,517

44 Minions Universal 26 Jun 2015 £47,822,929

45 Despicable Me 2 Universal 28 Jun 2013 £47,519,761

46 The Jungle Book Disney 15 Apr 2016 £46,235,032

47 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Warner Bros. 4 Jun 2004 £46,083,704

48 The King’s Speech Momentum 7 Jan 2011 £45,733,199

49 The Inbetweeners Movie Entertainment 19 Aug 2011 £45,030,412

50 Mary Poppins Returns Disney 21 Dec 2018 £44,520,866

*Still on UK/Ireland cinema release at the end of 2019

Comscore

73

74

reflections

on 2019

There were 5 weekends in

2019 where 6 titles all

crossed the £1m box office

mark. The lowest grossing

weekend of the year was

April 19-21 when no films

grossed £1m across the 3

days and the no.1 film was

Shazam in its 3rd week of

release. The following

weekend became the top

earner of the year, April

26-28, when Avengers:

Endgame opened. This

kind of vacuum before a

huge release is quite

commonplace, as it is rare

that a distributor would

want to launch a movie

and have it come off

screens in a week when

the juggernaut film arrives.

A distributor must use all of

their skills and market

acumen when picking a

release date for each film,

often looking to identify key

gaps in the calendar and

capitalising on myriad

factors to achieve the

maximum theatrical impact.

UK & irelAnD ToP 5 Films by monTH 2019

JAnUAry FebrUAry mArCH

The Favourite How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World Captain Marvel

Mary Poppins Returns The Lego Movie 2 Dumbo

Stan and Ollie Alita: Battle Angel Us

Glass Instant Family Fighting with My Family

Mary Queen of Scots Green Book Fisherman's Friends

APril mAy JUne

Avengers: Endgame Avenger's: Endgame Toy Story 4

Dumbo Aladdin Aladdin

Shazam! Rocketman Rocketman

Captain Marvel The Secret Life of Pets 2 X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Pet Semetary Pokemon Detective Pikachu Men in Black International

JUly AUGUsT sePTember

The Lion King The Lion King Downton Abbey

Spider-Man: Far from Home Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw It: Chapter Two

Toy Story 4 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Hustlers

Yesterday Toy Story 4 Ad Astra

Annabelle Comes Home Angel Has Fallen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

oCTober november DeCember

Joker Frozen 2 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Last Christmas Jumanji: The Next Level

Judy Joker Frozen 2

Abominable Le Mans '66 Cats

Downton Abbey Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Last Christmas

Comscore

75

UK & irelAnD CinemAGoinG by monTH 2019

2019

JAnUAry

FebrUAry mArCH APril mAy JUne

Box office period 4 Jan - 31 Jan 1 Feb - 28 Feb 1 March - 4 April 5 April - 2 May May 2 - 6 June 7 June - 4 July

Total box office gross

UK + Republic of Ireland £92,938,738 £91,216,416 £97,411,999 £125,462,109 £132,790,709 £96,439,804


Total new releases


65 60 88 69 80 74

UK admissions 13,711,441 12,226,237 11,430,575 15,981,248 16,570,282 13,920,453

Republic of Ireland

admissions

1,274,786 1,154,205 979,678 1,352,715 1,137,904 1,238,651

76

FIrst qUArter

(13 WeeKs)

213 new releases

Box office: £281,566,883

seConD qUArter

(13 WeeKs)

224 new releases

Box office: £354,692,622

FIrst hALF (26 WeeKs)

437 new releases (49% of 2019 releases)

Box office: £636,259,505 (47% of 2019 box office)

UK & irelAnD CinemAGoinG by monTH 2019

2019 JUly

AUGUsT sePTember oCTober november DeCember

Box office period 5 July - 1 Aug 2 Aug - 5 Sept 6 Sept - 3 Oct 4 Oct - 31 Oct 1 Nov - Dec 5 6 Dec - 2 Jan 2020

Total box office gross

UK + Republic of Ireland £137,906,680 £123,523,324 £82,695,709 £120,414,748 £111,435,151 £138,253,884


Total new releases


66 80 68 86 96 64

UK admissions 18,646,247 15,553,494 10,958,104 16,344,313 12,211,869 18,500,328

Republic of Ireland

admissions

1,642,185 1,374,203 954,895 1,527,643 1,065,166 1,377,448

thIrD qUArter

(13 WeeKs)

214 new releases

Box office: £344,125,713

FoUrth qUArter

(13 WeeKs)

245 new releases

Box office: £370,103,783

77

seConD hALF (26 WeeKs)

459 new releases (51% of 2019 releases)

Box office: £714,229,496 (53% of 2019 box office)

totAL theAtrICAL MArket 2019 (52 WeeKs: 4 JAn 2019 – 2 JAn 2020)

Total theatrical market 2019 (52 weeks: 4 Jan 2019 – 2 Jan 2020)

Overall UK + Ireland box office: £1,350,488,999 (-1.9% 2018)

generated from 896 new releases (vs. 916 in 2018)

Comscore

UK & irelAnD box oFFiCe by DAy oF

THe WeeK

ToP 15 CinemAGoinG WeeKenDs 2019

The 52-week average weekend box office in 2019 was £15.5m million (vs. £15.8 million in 2018)

2019

Friday

saturday

sunday

Weekend

15.3 24.5 19.6 59.4%

2019 WeeKenD

(Fri – Sun)

UK/irelAnD box oFFiCe

WeeKenD FiGUres

1 26 - 28 Apr £36,095,669 Avengers: Endgame

2 19 - 21 Jul £25,136,396 The Lion King

ToP Film

3 20 - 22 Dec £25,001,391 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

2018

15.5 24.1 19.1 58.7%

4 22 - 24 Nov £23,278,794 Frozen 2

2017

15.7 24.7 18.8 59.2%

5 27 - 29 Dec £23,190,712 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

2016

16.1 24.6 18.2 58.9%

6 26 - 28 Jul £20,528,344 The Lion King

2015

15.4 23.9 18.8 58.1%

7 4 - 6 Oct £20,366,901 Joker

8 5 - 7 Jul £19,715,586 Spider-Man: Far from Home

78

monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Weekday

9 21 - 23 Jun £19,172,758 Toy Story 4

10 3 - 5 May £18,983,467 Avengers: Endgame

11 8 - 10 Mar £18,942,434 Captain Marvel

2019

9.6 10.2 9.9 10.9 40.6%

12 11 - 13 Oct £18,576,929 Joker

2018

9.6 10 11.2 10.5 41.3%

13 24 - 26 May £17,838,138 Aladdin

2017

8.7 10.2 11.3 10.6 40.8%

14 4 - 6 Jan £17,282,203 Mary Poppins Returns

2016

9.7 10.4 10.9 10.1 41.1%

15 7 - 9 Jun £17,159,754 Aladdin

2015

9.6 10.6 10.8 10.9 41.9%

Total £321,269,476 = 24% of 2019 Box Office

Comscore

Comscore

ToP CinemAGoinG WeeKs 2019

FUll PlAyWeeK 2019

(Fri – Thu)

UK/irelAnD box oFFiCe

(7 days)

no. neW TiTles

releAseD

ToP 3 Films on UK releAse

1 26 Apr £47,970,013 13

2 20 Dec £31,419,136 8

3 27 Dec £24,411,388 8

4 24 May £20,440,707 12

5 19 Jul £25,491,160 11

6 26 Jul £20,567,896 21

7 5 Jul £25,765,959 16

8 4 Oct £20,832,882 21

9 22 Nov £23,271,218 22

10 2 Aug £16,992,565 18

11 25 Oct £16,456,018 23

12 15 Feb £13,852,006 18

13 3 May £18,981,686 12

14 16 Aug £17,837,635 13

15 21 Jun £19,340,647 16

Avengers: Endgame / Dumbo / Red Joan

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker / Jumanji: The Next Level / Cats

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker / Jumanji: The Next Level / Little Women

Aladdin / The Secret Life of Pets 2 / Rocketman

The Lion King / Toy Story 4 / Spider-Man: Far from Home

The Lion King / Toy Story 4 / Spider-Man: Far from Home

Spider-Man: Far from Home / Toy Story 4 / Yesterday

Joker / Judy / Downton Abbey

Frozen 2 / Last Christmas / Blue Story

The Lion King / Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw / Toy Story 4

Joker / The Addams Family / Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

The Lego Movie 2 / How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World / Instant Family

Avengers: Endgame / Longshot / Tolkien

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood / The Lion King / Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw

Toy Story 4 / Aladdin / Men in Black International

79

Top 15 weeks £343,630,914 = 25% of 2019 Box Office

Comscore

80

reflections

on 2019

Northern

Ireland

2.2%

Scotland

7.2%

2019

UK & irelAnD

CinemA

box oFFiCe

Republic

of Ireland

7.7%

Wales

3.2%

England

79.7%

81

Comscore

CinemAGoinG TrenDs by nATion – lAsT 3 yeArs

nATion

box oFFiCe 2019

box oFFiCe 2018

box oFFiCe 2017

scotland £97,844,761 £101,754,267 £104,391,236

northern ireland £29,595,322 £28,973,691 £28,652,682

england & Wales Breakdown in table below £1,124,587,993 £1,145,267,881 £1,145,017,102

UK £1,252,028,076 £1,275,995,839 £1,278,061,020

republic of ireland £105,072,754 £104,656,622 £99,827,538

Total UK + ireland £1,357,100,830 £1,380,652,461 £1,377,888,558

Comscore

82

no. oF

CinemAs

totAL

1148

107

no. oF

sCreens

totAL

5270

404

UK

nATion

no. oF

sCreens

PoPUlATion

sCreen

DensiTy*

England 3877 55,977,200 6.93

Scotland 404 5,438,100 7.43

37

234

Republic

of Ireland

519 4,920,000 10.55

98

838

519

3877

Wales 236 3,138,600 7.52

68

236

Northern

Ireland

234 1,881,600 12.44

Comscore

Comscore

Totals 5270 71,355,500 7.39

*screen density per 100,000 of population

Comscore

CinemAGoinG by reGion

in enGlAnD & WAles 2019

Tv reGion

box oFFiCe 2019

CinemAs

rePorTinG

box oFFiCe

London & West End £347,354,537 201

South (Meridian) £149,177,430 141

Central £148,778,057 128

Granada £117,162,301 87

Anglia £100,988,572 81

Yorkshire £100,818,244 88

Tyne Tees £44,137,286 38

West £39,880,675 46

South West £25,940,634 55

Border £7,181,392 27

£1,081,419,127

Total england 80% of UK 838

box office 2019

Wales £43,168,865 68

england

All regions in England & Wales saw a small dip in box office versus 2019, apart from

Central, which managed a slight rise (+0.6%). England has the lowest density of

screens in all of the UK & Ireland with Northern Ireland having the highest.

london calling

The average age of UK residents is 40, in London it is 36. With a population close to

9 million and rising, our multi-cultural capital is home to over 300 unique languages

and more than a third of the city’s population is now foreign born. With 200 plus

cinemas in London (54 in the West End) accounting for more than a quarter of the

year’s total box office, cinemagoing is in rude health, despite a marginal drop in 2019.

The capital boasts 75 of the top 300 performing cinemas in the country.

Similarly, London’s West End live theatre district is also thriving, with close to 50 venues

welcoming audiences on a daily basis. In 2018, there were over 15.5m tickets sold

for revenue of £765.8m. With the average ticket price increasing by 5.5% versus 2017

and almost 80% of seats filled, it looks to be boomtime for the stage (2019 figures

are yet to be published). With theatre prices at a premium, it is not a surprise that

Event Cinema has become so popular, bringing live staged entertainment to the

regions in their comfy local cinemas at a fraction of the cost.

lonDon

CinemA

box oFFiCe

Outer London £258,460,262 £262,520,780 -1.5% 19%

London’s

West End

box

oFFiCe

2019

box

oFFiCe

2018

box

oFFiCe

vs. 2018

UK

mArKeT

sHAre 2019

£88,894,275 £90,945,163 -2% 6.55%

83

Total england

Wales

£1,124,587,993

83% of UK 906

box office 2019

Total london £347,354,537 £353,465,943 -1.7% 25.7%

Comscore

Comscore

84

scotland

Accounting for 7.2% of the overall 2019 box office,

Scotland represents the third biggest region in the nation

in terms of box office receipts. Films featuring local

subjects or characters can often attract proportionally

larger audiences in Scotland, Wild Rose, Beats and

Mary Queen of Scots all saw significant skews in

their revenue north of the border.

Scotland has become increasingly sought after as a location

for filming, including recent appearances of Edinburgh

Waverley Station in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and

fishing village St. Abbs, doubling for New Asgard in

Avengers: Endgame. The region boasts the country’s

northernmost cinema, the Merlin Thurso, just 20 miles

from John O’Groats and over 800 miles from Land’s End.

box

oFFiCe

2019

box

oFFiCe

2018

box

oFFiCe

vs. 2018

Central Scotland £76,567,823 £79,541,760 -3.7%

Northern Scotland £21,276,938 £22,212,507 -4.2%

ireland

Alongside France, Ireland enjoys the highest annual admissions per capita in the European

Union (3.3 in Ireland compared with the EU average 1.5 and around 4 in the US). Although

admissions were slightly down across the island of Ireland as a whole, box office increased

in both Northern Ireland (+2.2%) and the Republic of Ireland (0.3%). Along with the Central

region in England, these were the only areas to show an increase in box office in 2019.

CinemA

ADmissions

2019

2018 2017 2016

Republic of Ireland 15,109,479 15,775,396 16,117,688 15,782,328

of which Dublin 6,225,257 6,650,661 6,859,066 6,809,421

Northern Ireland 5,562,691 5,782,040 5,800,530 5,746,313

Total island 20,672,171

of ireland -4.1% vs. 2018

CinemA

box oFFiCe

reCeiPTs

2019

21,557,436 21,918,218 21,528,641

2018 2017 2016

Republic of Ireland £105,072,754 £104,656,622 £99,827,538 £91,177,680

Comscore

Total nation

of scotland

£97,844,761 £101,754,267 - 3.8%

Comscore

Northern Ireland £29,595,322 £28,973,691 £28,652,682 £27,943,882

Total island

of ireland

£134,668,076 £133,630,313 £128,480,220 £119,121,562

Comscore

neW CinemAs AnD reFUrbisHmenTs

The UK and Irish cinema sector is currently

experiencing a healthy cycle of confidence

and financial investment. The last few

years has seen many new cinemas

designed, built and opened, while

several older sites have undergone

refurbishment to upgrade seating,

projection systems and concessions

areas, all to improve the overall

customer experience.

In 2019, there were 28 of

these projects undertaken,

delivering over 160

additional cinema

screens across

the regions.

14

17

26

4

10

18

23

19

6 12

25

24

3

16

15

7

8

20 27

9

28

20

2

22

11

5

1

13

21

ref Company

venue

Date

opened

1 Everyman Horsham Mar 19

2 Cineworld O2 Greenwich Apr 19

3 Odeon Leeds Apr 19

4 Everyman Newcastle May 19

5 Vue Eltham May 19

6 Odeon Warrington Jun 19

7 Odeon Leicester Jun 19

8 Odeon Maidenhead Jun 19

9 Cineworld Rushden Jun 19

10 Odeon Durham Jun 19

11 Picturehouse Bromley Jun 19

12 Light Stockport Jul 19

13 Cineworld Eastbourne Jul 19

14 Merlin Bodmin Jul 19

15 Savoy Grantham Jul 19

16 Reel Wakefield Aug 19

17 Cineworld Plymouth Oct 19

18 Everyman Clitheroe Oct 19

19 Everyman Manchester Oct 19

20 Everyman London Broadgate Oct 19

21 Arc Great Yarmouth Dec 19

22 Picturehouse Fulham Road Dec 19

23 Reel Chorley Dec 19

24 Cineworld York Dec 19

25 Cineworld Warrington Dec 19

26 Everyman Cardiff Dec 19

27 Everyman Wokingham Dec 19

28 Odeon Islington Dec 19

85

UKCA

reflections

on 2019

UK POPULATION

66,435,600 million

(grew by 0.4m from the previous year)

England: 56.0m (of which London: 8.9m)

Scotland: 5.4m

Wales: 3.1m

N. Ireland: 1.9m Source: ONS 2019

50.6% female

49.4% male

The UK population is currently larger than it has ever been and is

projected to pass the 70 million mark by mid 2031. The main drivers for

these potenital increases are immigration and longer life expectancy.

1 in 5 people are aged 65 or over and in 50 years’ time, there is

projected to be an additional 8 million people in this age bracket

– an elderly population boost just a million shy of present-day London.

86

AGe GroUP

UK PoPUlATion

0 – 4 3.9m people

5 – 14 8.0m

15 – 24 7.8m

25 – 34 9.0m

35 – 44 8.4m

45 – 54 9.2m

55 – 64 8.0m

65 – 74 6.6m

75+ 5.5m

Total 66.4m

ONS 2019

UK CINEMAGOERS

51,155,000 million

Cinema is estimated to reach 77% of the UK population – so

51.15m people go to the cinema at least once during the year

– rising to 88% of 16–34 year-olds, who accounted for

approximately 77m cinema visits in 2019.

The average cinema party group is 2.7 and varies only

marginally by age or gender demographics.

CinemAGoinG FreQUenCy

AGe GroUP 2018 2008

7 – 14 14.3% 15.8%

15 – 24 27.8% 31.7%

25 – 34 18.5% 18.5%

HoW oFTen Do yoU Go To THe CinemA?

In the UK, annual admissions per capita are currently at 2.7, not so different to those

territories in Europe with the highest number of visits Ireland (3.3) and France (3.1)

and somewhat higher than Spain (2.1), Italy (1.4) and Germany (1.3).

Looking at cinemagoing frequency (see below graphic) the number of cinema visits in a year

can be spilt into distinct groups: Occasional (2-3 visits per year), Regular (4-6 visits per year),

Frequent (7-11 visits per year) and Very Frequent (12+ visits per year):

● Of the occasional group, half were aged 35+

● Gender splits in the groups are mostly level apart from the regular cinema goers,

where 58% of visits were by women

● The largest portion of Frequent cinemagoers are aged 35-44

● More than half of very Frequent visitors were aged 25-44

FreQUenCy oF CinemAGoinG

87

35 – 44 17.3% 15.6%

45 – 54 10.5% 9.0%

55+ 11.5% 9.4%

Total 100% 100%

BFI

88

reflections

on 2019

HoW

DisTribUTors

Drove

CinemAGoinG

ACross THe

UK & irelAnD

in 2019

An estimated

£350m was

invested by UK &

Irish film distributors

to market the 896

new titles released

in 2019, with close

to half of that going

to countrywide

advertising across

a variety of digital,

social and

physical media.

The remainder

covers myriad

components:

digital cinema

packages (DCPs),

poster and trailer

production/

duplication,

local/national

publicity,

premiere costs

and advertising.

DisTribUTor PerFormAnCe 2019

DisTribUTor

PerFormAnCe

no. neW

TiTles TrACKeD

ToP TiTle

mArKeT

sHAre 2019

1 Disney 17 Avengers: Endgame 36.27%

2 Universal 32 Downton Abbey 13.88%

3 Warner Bros. 31 Joker 11.85%

4 Sony 20 Spider-Man: Far from Home 8.94%

5 20th Century Fox 22 The Favourite 5.50%

6 Paramount 11 Rocketman 5.30%

7 Lionsgate 17 Knives Out 4.17%

8 eOne 21 Stan and Ollie 3.73%

9 STX 7 Hustlers 1.14%

10 StudioCanal 19 Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon 1.04%

Top 10 197 91.82%

11 National Theatre 12 Fleabag

12 Entertainment 5 Fisherman’s Friends

13 Trafalgar 43 Bring the Soul: The Movie

14 Altitude 15 Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans

15 Royal Opera House 12 Romeo and Juliet - ROH, London 2018/19

16 CinemaLive 8 Take That - Greatest Hits Live 8.18%

17 Dogwoof 19 Apollo 11

18 Vertigo Releasing 14 Mrs Lowry and Son

19 Piece of Magic 2 Andre Rieu’s 2019 New Year Concert from Sydney

20 More2Screen 8 42nd Street - The Musical

129 further content suppliers 561 -

Total 149 suppliers 896 100%

Comscore

89

For the 4th consecutive year Disney were the no.1

distributor in the UK & Ireland with an unprecedented

36% market share from just 17 new releases and

achieved over £489.7m in box office, beating their

own record of £312.6m set in 2018. The winning

combination of their ubiquitous IP strands came

together to achieve true brand loyalty with 10 films

reaching no.1 and no less than 25 weekends of the

year seeing a Disney film atop the charts.

The re-imagining of classic titles from a wellstocked

catalogue brought success in the

form of The Lion King, Dumbo and Aladdin;

animation remained a constant with Frozen 2

(biggest 3-day opening for an animation

ever) and Pixar’s Toy Story 4; Marvel’s

MCU continued to thrive thanks to Captain

Marvel and their 23 film opus came to a

dramatic conclusion with Avengers:

Endgame (biggest opening of all time);

Lucasfilm’s 9-part, 42-year epic space

opera drew to a close with Star Wars: The

Rise of Skywalker; and Disney traversed

uncharted territory with newly inherited Fox

films Le Mans ’66, Terminator: Dark Fate

and Housefull 4. Globally, in 2019 Disney

became the first studio to ever cross the

$10bn mark in a single year.

90

Disney

Disney

Disney

six beComes Five: Fox ACQUireD by Disney, As one oF THe mAJor sTUDios FinDs A neW Home

On March 20 2019, Disney agreed their deal

to acquire 20th Century Fox, over 100 years

after New Jersey nickelodeon boss William Fox

began producing and distributing his own films.

Back then the nascent mogul in the making

quickly relocated to Los Angeles, formed the

Fox Corporation and picked up the now

legendary 100 acres between Pico and Santa

Monica Boulevard that became the Fox lot.

From 1927 they produced the first sound

newsreels, known as Fox-Movietone. Fox himself

had borrowed heavily to make these dreams of

technological advancement a reality just as

The Great Depression hit and he lost control of

the company. The studio saw rough times until

merging with Joseph Schenck and Darryl F.

Zanuck's Twentieth Century Pictures to form

what we know as Twentieth Century Fox.

If Fox were known for one thing, it was being

risk takers, their extensive catalogue of diverse

pictures is testament to that. Often casting less

well-known stars who were right for a part,

rather than an immediate marquee friendly

name, the careers of Marylyn Monroe,

Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis,

Jake Gyllenhaal and countless others all

benefited from the Fox talent ethos. It’s a spirit

Marvel and Lucasfilm, still swear by today.

Fox regularly went ahead and made the picture

no one else would. Star Wars was turned down

by most of the major studios before Fox exec

Alan Ladd Jr. agreed to greenlight the film that

changed movie going forever. Titanic also did the

rounds, before finally settling at Fox with then exec

Peter Chernin. Ridley Scott’s Alien, David Fincher’s

Fight Club, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid,

M*A*S*H, Moulin Rouge and The Rocky Horror

Picture Show all had something enduringly unique

about them and found a home at Fox.

The studio were early proponents of the superhero

collective, with X-Men arriving on the big screen

several years before the now ubiquitous grasp

superheroes have on the tentpole arena. Innovation

drove their narratives on, as they experimented

with more adult versions of these children’s tales,

resulting in the violently hilarious Deadpool and the

equally bloody, but brooding Logan, both of which

landed big box office success to boot.

Fox were not shy of tackling more mainstream or

even weightier subjects, as their 78 OSCAR Best

Picture nominations and 12 wins demonstrated.

The Grapes of Wrath, The Sound of Music,

All About Eve, The Longest Day, Cleopatra,

The French Connection, The Thin Red Line,

The Revenant, Life of Pi, The Martian, Hidden

Figures and Bohemian Rhapsody all walked the line

between populist and awards worthy in some style.

Their work with subsidiary Fox Searchlight, a

happy marriage of some 26 years, led to 17 of

those Best Picture nominations and some of the

most memorable films of the last few decades,

including The Full Monty, Black Swan,

The Grand Budapest Hotel, Three Billboards

Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Shape of Water

and 2019’s local superhit The Favourite.

There is definite and immediate synergy with

Disney for some of the more high-profile

behemoths, which have until now been under

Fox’s care. James Cameron’s pending Avatar

sequels fit nicely into the global franchise model

that Disney are so adept at executing, as does the

Planet of the Apes series. The Marvel Cinematic

Universe continues to expand, and having X-Men

and Deadpool as part of the immediate family

must make things a little easier for Kevin Feige

and team as they plan for Phase 4 and beyond.

Out and about, Fox have become very much part

of the Disney family. An early show of solidarity

saw Searchlight and 20th Century presented at

the major trade shows as brands within Disney

alongside the likes of Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar.

The hope is that these edgier brands will still

have a chance to thrive alongside the huge

global catch-alls.

They say you can judge a person by their friends.

If you can similarly judge a studio by their films,

then Fox were risk takers through and through,

and their 84-year history as a standalone studio

will be long treasured.

91

20 th CENTURY FOX’S LAST DECADE

92

All films © 20th Century Fox

20 th CENTURY FOX’S LEGACY

93

All films © 20th Century Fox

94

mArKeTinG

AnD PUbliCiTy

The UK & Ireland

acts as a large

cinema territory,

accounting for

4% of the global

box office. Across

the territory

there are high

distribution and

marketing costs,

coupled with

relatively low

returns for

distributors.

With such a

crowded theatrical

marketplace and

increasingly

time-poor

populations, it can

be difficult to cut

through when you

only get one key

opportunity to

release a film.

Getting a film

out there and

suitably noticed is

more important to

success than ever.

Film DisTribUTors’ meDiA ADvereTisinG sPenD 2019

PAiD-For meDiA 2019 2018

Television £67,166,253 £79,173,286

Outdoor £75,420,982 £54,945,178

Digital/online £49,605,972 £56,421,771

Press £9,464,230 £14,062,643

Radio £11,287,716 £11,489,263

Other (e.g. cinema, direct mail) £109,137 £220,459

Total £213,054,290 -1.5% vs. 2018 £216,312,600

Film DisTribUTors’ PHysiCAl meDiA ADverTisinG sPenD by monTH 2019

Total £213,054,290 896

Nielsen Media Research for FDA

2019

PHysiCAl meDiA ADverTisinG neW TiTles releAseD in All TiTles on UK releAse

sPenD – All UK Film DisTribUTors UK/irelAnD CinemAs

(incl. holdovers)

January £19,944,982 65 171

February £16,319,211 60 185

March £12,072,080 88 202

April £19,922,200 69 209

May £20,307,094 80 219

June £15,989,265 74 213

July £13,375,833 66 207

August £11,000,744 80 220

September £18,733,828 68 202

October £20,374,942 86 222

November £17,017,416 96 241

December £27,996,695 64 190

Nielsen Media Research for FDA

bAnG on TrenD- soCiAl meDiA TrAFFiC For neW releAses in 2019

GooGle seArCH

TrenDs 2019

ToP 10 mosT seArCHeD-For

Films on GooGle WorlDWiDe

1 Avengers: Endgame

2 Joker

3 Captain Marvel

4 Toy Story 4

5 Aquaman

6 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

7 Frozen 2

8 Green Book

Superheroes ruled the roost again, with 4 of the top 10 searches (2 a piece from DC and Marvel) and

Disney films claimed 6 of the top 10 searches.

The most searched for actor globally was Jussie Smollett (Empire), with Kevin Hart and Joaquin Phoenix

rounding out the top 3.

1 Avengers: Endgame

2 Joker

3 Captain Marvel

4 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

5 The Favourite

6 Green Book

7 The Lion King

8 Aquaman

9 It: Chapter 2

ToP 10 mosT seArCHeD-For Films on GooGle UK

95

9 The Lion King

10 Aladdin

Google

10 Bohemian Rhapsody

The single biggest search topic on Google UK was the Rugby World Cup, followed by the Cricket World Cup, TV

shows Game Of Thrones, Chernobyl and supervillain Thanos. Avengers: Endgame placed 7th and Joker 10th overall.

Google

you Tube is the second most visited site on the internet

after Google with 2 billion active monthly users

amounting to 45% of all internet users. More than 400

hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute.

mosT WATCHeD Film TrAilers on yoU TUbe 2019

Film TrAiler

TrAiler

releAseD 2019

no.

vieWs

1 Avengers: Endgame 14 Mar 131m+

2 Frozen 2 11 Jun 90m+

3 Joker 11 Jun 81m+

4 Spider-Man: Far from Home 6 May 79m+

imDb ToP 10 mosT vieWeD Film TrAilers 2019

Film TrAiler DesiGnATion/DUrATion

1 Joker Theatrical Trailer, 2mins 25 secs

2 Avengers: Endgame Official Trailer, 2 mins 26 secs

3 KGF: Chapter 1 2 mins 45 secs

4 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Teaser Trailer, 2 mins 4 secs

5 Kabir Singh Official Trailer, 2mins 44 secs

6 Spider-Man: Far from Home Official Trailer, 2 mins 49 secs

7 John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum Official Trailer 2, 2 mins 30 secs

8 Uri: The Surgical Strike 1 min 19 secs

9 After Offcial Trailer, 1 min 53 secs

10 Us New Trailer, 1 min 1 sec

5 The Lion King 10 Apr 64m+

You Tube

imDb’s mosT AnTiCiPATeD Films oF 2020

IMDb

96

yAHoo! movies seArCH TrenDs 2019

ToP 5 seArCHeD-For Films on yAHoo! movies 2019

1 Glass

2 Shazam

3 Frozen 2

4 Alita: Battle Angel

5 Rocketman

1 Birds of Prey

2 Sonic the Hedgehog

3 Top Gun: Maverick

4 No Time To Die

5 Black Widow

6 Mulan

7 Wonder Woman 84

8 Dune

9 The King’s Man

10 Fast & Furious 9

Yahoo

IMDb

imDb’s Top stars of 2019

The overall top 10 is made up of those who consistently ranked the highest

on IMDb’s weekly chart of page-views throughout the year; the breakout

stars are the highest ranked among those who charted for the first time in

2019. There was a strong showing for female actors on both lists and

Keanu Reeves made a return after not being ranked for some years.

imDb ToP 10 sTArs 2019 imDb ToP 10 breAKoUT sTArs 2019

1 Brie Larson (ranked 13th in 2018) Erin Moriarty

2 Erin Moriarty Dacre Montgomery

3 Emilia Clarke (15th in 2018) Zachary Levi

4 Naomi Scott (41st in 2018) Rosa Salazar

5 Dacre Montgomery Elizabeth Lail

6 Zachary Levi Margaret Qualey

7 Keanu Reeves Isabela Merced

8 Rosa Salazar Emma Mackey

9 Margot Robbie (17th in 2018) Maya Hawke

10 Joaquin Phoenix Lucy Boynton

IMDb

1 Avengers: Endgame

2 Toy Story 4

3 Joker

4 Spider-Man: Far from Home

5 The Lion King

6 Weathering with You

7 Captain Marvel

8 It Chapter Two

9 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

10 Frozen II

Top Trending Films

on Twitter 2019

Twitter has over 145 million daily active users and people watch over

2 billion videos a day through Twitter, with 93% of these video views

happening on a mobile device.

Avengers: Endgame was the most tweeted about movie, Tom Holland (top

actor), Game Of Thrones (top TV show), Korean band BTS (top musicians),

FC Barcelona (top sports team), UEFA Champions League (top sports

competition), Notre Dame (top news) and Donald Trump (top politician).

mosT TWeeTeD Films 2019

Twitter

97

PreMIeres

The UK has become firmly established as a global

launchpad for films. London is seen as Europe’s premier

Premiere destination, and in 2019 the capital hosted

a total of 66 star-studded World, European and UK

Premieres, not to mention a glut of festival galas.

Premieres act as the initial springboard

to a film’s success, and the mix of talent

availability and junket accessibility helps

to greatly raise a title’s profile across all

social media, press and publicity outlets.

Attracting top talent from across the

world, these high-end, glamorous

red (or rather, multicoloured)

carpet events were arranged and

funded by distributors.

eOne

Disney

98

Disney

Universal

Universal

Disney

Sony

99

Paramont

Paramont

100

CIneMA

For ALL

Report by Derek Brandon, founder and editor of YourLocalCinema

FDA supports YourLocalCinema, the

multi-award-winning service that helps

film fans with hearing or sight loss to fully

enjoy the cinemagoing experience.

YourLocalCinema service is run by a film

fan with hearing loss and incorporates

text messaging, email, live chat,

Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, as

well as a smartphone app, captioned

trailers channel on YouTube and a

trusted brand website.

YourLocalCinema’s precisely targeted

local promotion of captioned shows is

also free to cinemas.

In 2004 audience development agency

YourLocalCinema began to collaborate

with distributors, exhibitors and the BFI to

build a new cinema audience. Today,

YourLocalCinema's detailed, precisely

targeted local promotion of captioned

films and trailers to its unique, opt-in

customer database of film fans helps

drive tens of thousands of customers to

cinemas each week. Attendance to

captioned shows has tripled over the last

decade and continues to grow at pace.

Aside from financial support, FDA

members have ensured that releases are

accessible to film fans with hearing or

sight loss. Caption and narration tracks

are produced for over 200 titles

annually, enabling cinemas to provide

accessible, inclusive shows from the

opening release date. For a few hours,

the disabling barrier is removed, helping

to achieve greater inclusion and

community integration, and inspiring

ever more cinema visits.

reCenT FeeDbACK From

yoUrloCAlCinemA Users

Absolutely couldn’t do without subtitles, have relied on them

since this website started! Subtitled cinema isn’t just about

seeing the latest films, it’s about date nights, being included

in office chat about new releases, and just having a choice.

Nearly 20 years ago, I remember finding out from

YourLocalCinema.com about subtitled shows of the first

Lord of the Rings film at Uxbridge. I travelled all the way

across London on the Tube to see it. Now, my best friend and

I go the cinema every month, and I publicise your service

with every sign-language student I teach – thank you!

Brilliant! Been visiting your website for years and

have now downloaded the app, just as easy to roam.

Love the subtitled trailers, keep up the good work!

Without subtitles I wouldn’t be able to go to the cinema.

That’s the same for lots of my deaf friends and

thousands of deaf people in the UK.

I am nearly totally deaf and need subtitles to watch

tv or films. Subtitles at the cinema...without them I could

not have the big screen experience. I love the whole cinema

thing - popcorn, fizzy drink, comfy VIP seats and the wow

of the big screen! Without subtitled cinema watching big

new films would not be the same. It cannot be duplicated

by tv. Thank you for the brilliant experience!

Being able to watch the latest blockbuster films has

been a lifeline for me. I have been deaf since

birth and constantly face barriers in life,

but subtitles help to remove those barriers.

YourLocalCinema.com

ACCESSIBILITY IN NUMBERS

●

Over 2 million people in the UK & Ireland live

with sight loss, of whom around 360,000 are

registered blind or partially sighted. source: RNIB

●

700,000 people in the UK are on the autism

spectrum, which includes Asperger syndrome and

Pathological Demand Avoidance. source: Dimensions UK

●

●

●

●

11 million people in the UK & Ireland have

hearing loss, including 1 in 5 aged over 50.

source: Action on Hearing Loss

In 2019, over 1 million cinema tickets were issued

to cinemagoers for a captioned film performance.

YourLocalCinema website received over

1 million views in 2019, with local

accessible showtimes updated weekly.

600 cinemas (20% increase on 2018) now

consistently programme captioned film performances.

● Over 1,500 captioned shows each week, 80,000

shows (7% increase on 2018) for the full year.

●

Into Film Festival (6 – 22 Nov), which arranges free

cinema visits and events for 5-19 year-olds, included

395 subtitled film screenings, all promoted via YLC.

●

400 cinemas now regularly programme autism

friendly screenings each month.

● Over 3,750 autism friendly shows (25%

increase on 2018) played across the year.

●

●

●

●

There are over 850,000 people in the UK living

with dementia, approximately 5% are under 65

with young onset dementia. source: Dementia UK

An increasing number of cinemas are now

presenting dementia friendly screenings.

161,000 CEA Cards, which enable carers to

attend cinema shows for free, were issued last

year (an increase of 10% on 2018).

In 2019 over 1 million free cinema tickets were

given out through the CEA Card scheme.

101

102

FIGhtInG

PIrAtes

Report by Simon Brown, Director of the Film Content Protection Agency,

on the constant battle to protect film assets and an eventful year of activity.

Film theft remains an ongoing and significant problem to the industry and those who work in it.

Over 90% of pirated versions of newly released films are still sourced in cinemas by illegal

activity involving the use of compact digital recording devices – mostly smartphones.

The Film Content Protection Agency (FCPA) is fully funded by FDA and was established in

2016 to serve as FDA’s dedicated unit committed to safeguarding films and their valuable

intellectual property during the theatrical release. FCPA’s goal is to see zero pirated films

sourced from UK and Irish cinemas.

High-impact cases

2019 was a particularly challenging year with a distinct increase in the number of pirated films

illegally sourced from cinemas in the UK & Ireland and then distributed online. A total of 16 films

were “camcorded” by offenders in 11 cinemas in 3 specific geographical areas – Peterborough,

London and Dublin.

In all cases, FCPA were able to deploy resources to investigate the incidents with positive

outcomes. Working closely in collaboration with the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit

(PIPCU) at The City of London Police and the

Garda in Ireland, a total of 6 offenders -

professional “cammers” - were arrested for such

activity during the year. Criminal prosecutions are

currently pending for each of them. Such illegal

activity is very damaging to the industry – not only

does the availability of pirated versions of newly

released films online cause significant financial

loss, but it also has an impact on our ability to

offer reassurance that we can release films

securely in the UK & Ireland ahead of other

territories.

Unpredictability and vulnerability

During the year, all high-impact activity originated

from cinemas without any previous history or

intelligence of piracy, and this unpredictability has

proved challenging. It serves as a reminder that all

cinemas, irrespective of geography, location or

infrastructure are vulnerable to this criminality.

Whilst offenders have typically targeted cinemas

local to them initially, there was also an apparent

and concerning willingness by them to then travel

further afield to reoffend – influenced by financial

incentives from the piracy internet groups who

recruited and tasked them.

For example, in one London case during the year

the offender pirated 5 films at 4 different cinemas

over only 4 weeks, and travelled distances up to

12 miles across the city to do so. Examples like

this clearly illustrate the importance of rapid

intervention in terms of investigation and

enforcement activity, in order to disrupt their

activities and prevent further significant losses to

the industry.

Awareness and vigilance

Despite the increase in proven activity, the year

also saw encouraging evidence of continued

high levels of anti-piracy awareness and

vigilance across UK & Irish cinemas. A total of

188 incidents (28% increase on 2018) were

reported by exhibitors to FCPA during 2019,

representing the highest annual number of

disrupted attempts to record films in cinemas

since the territory anti-piracy programme first

began back in 2006. Whilst this may be partly

due to the general increase in opportunities as

more and more cinema-goers carry smart

phones with recording capabilities, it is also a

reflection on the success of one of the FCPA’s

core objectives to increase awareness and

vigilance, which inevitably leads to a rise in

reported activity.

Throughout 2019, over 2,000 cinema staff from

62 cinemas across the UK attended awareness

presentations on film piracy by the FPCA and

were provided with expert advice and

information on how their vigilance could help

tackle the problem.

Encouraging vigilance and awareness is vital,

and FCPA continued to acknowledge cinema

staff for their efforts in tackling film piracy

through its reward programme. Across the year,

25

20

15

10

5

0

40 cinema staff were formerly recognised for

successfully disrupting attempts to illegally

record films and presented with cash rewards

at FCPA bi-annual Presentations.

Proven PirATeD Films ("CAms") From UK & irisH CinemAs

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Audio & Visual

Wider piracy issues

Whilst the core of FCPA cases remain focused on

source-piracy and protecting theatrical releases,

work also continues in partnership with the MPA

(Motion Picture Association) and centres

primarily on the online sale and importation of

infringing DVDs and internet streaming devices

(IPTV, etc.). FCPA provides resources to carry out

professional examinations of any seized

Audio Only

(suspected infringing) products and provide

evidence for subsequent prosecutions. During

2019 nearly 300 cases of this nature were

referred to FCPA for investigation by various

bodies including the UK Border Force, Trading

Standards and various Law Enforcement

Agencies (LEAs), leading to 17 criminal

prosecutions to date.

FCPA

103

Worldwide

round-Up

Worldwide box office 2019

$42.5bn

(+2% vs. 2018)

Us/Canada box office 2019

$11.4bn

(-4% vs. 2018)

104

international box office 2019

$31.1bn

(+4% vs. 2018)

ToP Films

WorlDWiDe

2019

Film

DisTribUTor

WorlDWiDe

box oFFiCe

2019

inTernATionAl

box oFFiCe

(inClUDinG UK/irelAnD)

% inTernATionAl

box oFFiCe

(inClUDinG UK/irelAnD)

%Us/

CAnADA

box oFFiCe

1 Avengers: Endgame Disney $2,797,800,564 $1,939,427,564 69.3% 30.7%

2 The Lion King Disney $1,656,943,394 $1,113,305,351 67.2% 32.8%

3 Frozen II Disney $1,328,989,819 $875,912,917 65.9% 34.1%

4 Spider-Man: Far from Home Sony $1,131,927,996 $741,395,911 65.5% 34.5%

5 Captain Marvel Disney $1,128,274,794 $701,444,955 62.2% 37.8%

6 Toy Story 4 Disney $1,073,394,593 $639,356,585 59.6% 40.4%

7 Joker Warner Bros. $1,066,735,310 $732,700,000 68.7% 31.3%

8 Aladdin Disney $1,050,693,953 $695,134,737 66.2% 33.8%

9 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Disney $945,945,094 $485,000,000 51.3% 48.7%

10 Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw Universal $758,910,100 $585,100,000 77.1% 22.9%

Total Top 10 $12.93bn $8.5bn

11 Ne Zha BEP $700,547,754 $696,852,221 99.5% 0.5%

12 The Wandering Earth CFG $699,760,773 $693,885,286 99.2% 0.8%

13 Jumanji: The Next Level Sony $617,268,795 $375,377,618 60.8% 39.2%

14 How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World Universal $521,799,505 $361,000,000 69.2% 30.8%

15 Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Disney $491,084,206 $377,518,579 76.9% 23.1%

16 It Chapter Two Warner Bros. $472,093,228 $260,500,000 55.2% 44.8%

17 My People, My Country Huaxia $436,310,175 $433,953,492 99.5% 0.5%

18 Pokémon Detective Pikachu Warner Bros. $431,705,346 $287,600,000 66.6% 33.4%

19 The Secret Life of Pets 2 Universal $429,434,163 $271,176,898 63.1% 36.9%

20 The Captain Music Box $412,707,175 $412,000,603 99.8% 0.2%

21 Alita: Battle Angel 20th Century Fox $404,852,543 $319,142,333 78.8% 21.2%

22 Godzilla: King of the Monsters Warner Bros. $385,900,138 $275,400,000 71.4% 28.6%

23 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Sony $372,390,936 $231,294,406 62.1% 37.9%

24 Shazam! Warner Bros. $364,571,656 $224,200,000 61.5% 38.5%

25 Dumbo Disney $353,284,621 $238,518,314 67.5% 32.5%

26 John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum Lionsgate $326,709,727 $155,694,040 47.7% 52.3%

27 Terminator: Dark Fate Disney $261,119,292 $198,866,215 76.2% 23.8%

28 Us Universal $255,105,930 $80,100,000 31.4% 68.6%

29 Men in Black: International Sony $253,890,701 $173,888,894 68.5% 31.5%

30 X-Men: Dark Phoenix 20th Century Fox $252,442,974 $186,597,000 73.9% 26.1%

Total Top 30 $21.36bn $14.76bn

Box Office Mojo

105

106

The worldwide box office reached a record

$42.5bn in 2019. Avengers: Endgame was

the no.1 film on the planet, achieving a

staggering $2.7bn worldwide to become

the highest grossing film of all time (beating

Avatar’s 10-year hold on the title). A record

8 films crossed the $1bn mark globally

(vs. 5 in 2018). In the history of cinema

to date, only 45 films have passed this

threshold. Of those, just 5 have crossed

the $2bn mark (see table below).

ToP Films WorlDWiDe All-Time

Top 5 all

time total

Film liFeTime yeAr

1 Avengers: $2,797,800,564 2019

Endgame

2 Avatar $2,789,958,507 2009

3 Titanic $2,187,463,944 1997

Star Wars:

4 The Force $2,068,223,624 2015

Awakens

Avengers:

5 Infinity $2,048,359,754 2018

War

$11.89bn

Box Office Mojo

ToP Films Us/CAnADA 2019

Us Population 329.1m

Canada Population 35.8m

Film DisTribUTor 2019 box oFFiCe

1 Avengers: Endgame Disney $858,373,000

2 The Lion King Disney $543,638,043

3 Frozen 2 Disney $438,585,364

4 Toy Story 4 Disney $434,038,008

5 Captain Marvel Disney $426,829,839

6 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Disney $417,057,441

7 Spider-Man: Far from Home Sony $390,532,085

8 Aladdin Disney $355,559,216

9 Joker Warner Bros. $333,856,970

10 IT: Chapter 2 Warner Bros. $211,593,228

Total Top 10 $4,410,063,194

Comscore

The US and Canada accounted for 27% of the global box office in 2019 (-4% vs. 2018) for the second

biggest box office year ever behind 2018’s record breaker. An impressive last quarter helped bolster the

coffers, as the market was down -11% year on year at the end of April. This was the 5th consecutive year

US & Canada box office surpassed $11bn (see US & Canada box office trends graph).

With admissions at 1.244bn (-5% vs. 2018) 2019 ranked as the 2nd worst year for cinema footfall since

1995, just shy of 2017s 1.236bn nadir.

29 releases crossed the $100m threshold (vs. 35 titles in 2018).

5-yeAr mArKeT TrenDs Us/CAnADA

Gross

box office

Cinema

Admissions

2019 2018 2017 2016 2015

$11.4bn $11.85bn $11.09bn $11.37bn $11.1bn

1.244bn 1.301bn 1.236bn 1.314bn 1.32bn

Average

cinema $9.19 $9.11 $8.97 $8.65 $8.43

ticket price

NATO (National Association of Theatre Owners) figures show that the

US has 5,869 cinemas, housing a massive 41,172 screens. 321 of these

cinemas are drive-in theatres.

Us & CAnADA

MPAA/NATO

inTernATionAl mArKeTs

International receipts rose to £31.1bn in 2019 (+4% vs. 2018), crashing

through the $30bn barrier for the first time and accounting for 73% of

the worldwide box office. The top 10 territories grossed $20.7bn of the

International Box office (vs. $19.4bn in 2018). Japan saw double digit

growth, as did Mexico, and France had a marquee year with 213.3m

admissions (+6% vs.2018) their highest returns since 1966, bringing in

$1.44bn in box office.

ToP inTernATionAl mArKeTs

rAnK

TerriTory

box oFFiCe $

inTernATionAl

mArKeT sHAre

WorlDWiDe

mArKeT sHAre

% CHAnGe

vs. 2018

1 China $9,124,716,446 32.9% 23.3% +5%

2 Japan $2,228,942,768 8.0% 5.7% +18.3%

3 UK & Ireland $1,722,657,233 6.2% 4.4% -1.9%

4 South Korea $1,684,108,499 6.1% 4.3% +3.9%

5 France $1,441,850,949 5.2% 3.7% +0.4%

6 Germany $1,081,044,346 3.9% 2.8% +9%

7 Mexico $992,578,111 3.6% 2.5% +13.3%

107

8 Russia $904,932,485 3.3% 2.3% +7.1%

9 Australia $841,743,033 3.0% 2.1% -2%

10 Italy $709,406,252 2.6% 1.8% +8.8%

Us & CAnADA box oFFiCe TrenDs lAsT 5 yeArs

Total $20,731,980,122 74.6% 53.0%


Comscore

Film

China Population 1.43bn

ToP Films CHinA 2019

DisTribUTor

2019

box oFFiCe

1 Ne Zha Huoerguosi $719,755,767

2 The Wandering Earth China Film Group $690,994,017


4 My People,

My Country

Huaxia Film $446,085,323

5 The Captain Bona Film $416,246,690

Box office in the 2nd largest cinema territory in the world reached an all-time

high of $9.1bn in 2019 (+5% vs. 2018), something of a levelling-off after the

last decade’s exponential growth (see China box office trends graph), whilst

admissions remained at a steady 1.7bn.

Local films accounted for 65% of the total box office. Home grown animated

adventure Ne Zha and science fiction blockbuster Wandering Earth took the

top two spots. Patriotic fair such as airplane action drama The Captain and

My People, My Country also made the top 5, the latter being produced to

commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic

of China. Avengers: Endgame and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

were the only Hollywood films to make the overall top 10 for the year.

The number of cinema screens operating in China is close to reaching

70,000, increasing by around 10,000 since 2018. Many of these new

screens have been built in smaller towns and rural areas, where local

audiences currently appear more interested in Chinese-made films, rather

than foreign tent poles from Hollywood.

6 Crazy Alien Huoerguosi $327,598,981

CHinA

7 Pegasus Multiple Distributors $255,510,705

108

8 The Bravest

Beijing Bona

Culture Ex. Co.

$244,259,105

9 Better Days Multiple Distributors $222,577,596

10

Fast & Furious Presents:

Hobbs & Shaw

Universal $201,000,988

Total Top 10 $4,138,345,193

CHinA box oFFiCe TrenDs lAsT 5 yeArs

Comscore


mexico Population 128.2m

ToP Films mexiCo 2019

Mexico had a record year at the box office banking $992.5m

(up 13% vs. 2018) (see Mexico box office trends graph).

The top 10 films accounted for 43% of the year’s box office.

Local titles made up over 9% of the overall box office and almost

10% of admissions. 9 out of the top 10 local titles were comedies:

romantic comedy No Manches Frida 2 (based on German super hit

Fack ju Göhte 2) came out best ($17.5m), followed by class war

comedy Mirreyes Contra Godinez ($12.5m) and relationship comedy

Tod@s Caen ($6.9m). In 9th place, fantasy animation Dia de Muertos

($3.11m) was the only non-comedy in the local top 10. None of these

titles came close to the overall top 10, dominated by Hollywood studio

tent poles, with Disney taking 7 spots, Warner 2 and Sony 1.

mexiCo

Film

DisTribUTor

2019 box

oFFiCe









109

9 Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Disney $26,518,884

10 It: Chapter 2 Warner Bros. $22,624,558

mexiCo box oFFiCe TrenDs lAsT 5 yeArs


Total Top 10 $426,177,362

Comscore

Germany Population 83.6m

ToP Films GermAny 2019

There was something of a recovery at the German box office in 2019, after the

previous year’s nadir. Distributors and exhibitors alike breathed a sigh of relief, as

box office rose +9% vs. 2018. The market had dipped severely, by close to $200m in

2018 (see Germany box office trends graph) due to a lack of local titles or successful

international ones. A reluctance to invest in cinemas over the years has also been

touted as an issue, and with 1.3 visits per capita, things are still looking tough.

Just one local title made the overall top 10, high concept comedy Das perfekte

Geheimnis ($46.8m), ranking 5th for the year. The film was written and directed

by Bora Dagtekin, the mastermind behind Germany’s biggest local language

hit Fack ju Göhte. Outside of the top 20, crime comedy sequel Leberkäsjunkie

($10m) bested the previous instalment Sauerkrautkoma ($7.6m), playing

particularly strongly in Bavaria.

According to German Filmboard figures the country has 1,689 cinemas

and 4,889 screens.

GermAny

Film

DisTribUTor

2019 box

oFFiCe




4

Star Wars:

The Rise of Skywalker

Disney $48,665,215

5 Das perfekte Geheimnis Constantin $44,778,081



110

8 It: Chapter 2 Warner Bros. $20,886,774

9 The Secret Life of Pets 2 Universal $20,492,802

10

Once Upon a Time in

Hollywood

Sony $19,719,115

GermAny box oFFiCe TrenDs lAsT 5 yeArs


Total Top 10 $393,180,304

Comscore

Australia Population 25.4m

ToP Films AUsTrAliA 2019

Film

DisTribUTor

2019 box

oFFiCe





5 Joker Roadshow $28,359,435

Along with the UK, Australia was the

only top 10 international territory to

see a drop in box office, banking

$822m (vs. $893 in 2018), which was

still the country’s 3rd highest grossing

year of all time. The top 10 films

accounted for over $300m and close

to 36% of the market. Despite high

admissions per capita of 7 (consistently

so since 2000) and cinema being the

no.1 out of home entertainment choice,

piracy was rife with the number of

viewers watching films illegally on the

rise. Recent extreme natural weather

conditions would also likely have taken

their toll on cinemagoing.

The top 30 was mostly dominated by

Hollywood films, Avengers: Endgame

was the no.1 film of the year, breaking

box office records for biggest opening

day ($7.05m) and weekend

($23.4m), with the opening day

ranking as the biggest ever singleday’s

box office in Australia. Local

product underperformed compared

to previous years, accounting for just

under $30m (vs. almost $40m in

2018). Local title Ride Like A Girl

($8m), the story of Michelle Payne,

the first female jockey to win the

Melbourne Cup, ranked 28th and

Australian romantic teen drama Five

Feet Apart ($4.97m) made the top 40.

According to Screen Australia, the

country has 520 cinemas and a total

2,278 screens.


AUsTrAliA

7 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Disney $24,408,036


111


10

How To Train your Dragon:

The Hidden World

Universal $16,139,090

Total Top 10 $303,918,221

AUsTrAliA box oFFiCe 5 yeAr TrenDs

Comscore


112

home & Mobile

entertainment

2019

reVenUes

hIt A reCorD

breAkInG hIGh

£7.8

billion

82%

of value from digital

downloads/streaming

18%

of value from

physical media

UK enTerTAinmenT sAles 2019

CATeGory

sAles 2019 (£M)

sAles 2018 (£M)

% CHAnGe

vs. 2018

video

Physical retail £477.2m £616.9m -22.6%

Physical rental £23.4m £31.1m -24.8%

Digital services (VoD, EST) £2,109.4m £1,736.5m 21.0%

Total video £2,610.0m £2,384.5m 9.5%

music

Physical £318.1m £383.2m -17.0%

Streaming £1,002.9m £812.0m 23.5%

Downloads £89.7m £122.6m -26.8%

Total music £1,410.7m £1,317.9m 7.1%

Games

Physical £602.6m £769.9m -21.7%

Digital £3,171.5m £3,136.4m 1.1%

Total Games £3,774.1m £3,906.3m -3.4%

overall

Total physical product £1,421.3m £1,801.1m -21.1%

Total digital incl. streaming £6,375.5m £5,807.4m 9.7%

overall total £7,794.8m £7,608.5m 2.4%

ERA

113

114

on the Phone and on the go - according to the ONS:

● 79% of UK adults own a smart phone

● The average person spends over 2hrs 30mins

a day on their smart phone

● 72% of mobile connections are 4G

(vs. 66% in 2018)

● 1 in 5 mins spent online is dedicated to social media

● More than 20% of UK households now own a

smart speaker

● Over 20% of people own wearable tech

vs. 1% in 2014

● 50% of households have a smart TV vs. 11% in 2015

Consumer electronics drive growth

Rising demand for smart technology in our phones

and televisions, together with the proliferation of

artificial intelligence in our homes through voice

recognition electronics, all push the need for smarter,

faster, more intelligent machines to help us in our

time-poor existence.

There is the concern that our reliance on these

devices is causing them to be made quickly and

relatively cheaply, as a “fast fashion” mentality

encroaches on the high-end electronics market.

A recent study by the United Nations claimed that the

world produced over 44m metric tonnes of ‘e-waste’

in 2016, the equivalent of 4,500 Eiffel Towers. The

provision for disposing of our last tablet or TV is sorely

underestimated and wholly inadequate, likely becoming

a bigger issue as time and technology move on.

islands in the stream

The UK spent a record £3bn on streaming films, music

and television in 2019, as customers shifted their focus

to online based services like Netflix, Spotify and

Amazon. More than 80% of total entertainment

sales are now conducted on internet-based services.

Total sales of physical entertainment products fell by

21% last year, from £1.8bn to £1.4bn.

video at home and away

As the public gravitates toward the convenience,

variety and immediacy of streaming, the video

market has reaped the greatest benefit. Thanks to the

popularity of services such as Netflix, Now TV and

Amazon Prime, video is the rising star of the

streaming world, up 21% to an impressive £2.1bn.

The biggest video hit of 2019 was Bohemian

Rhapsody selling 1.7m copies, still two thirds of

which were sales of physical formats. Although

physical media is in decline, it still accounted for

over £470m in video sales and remains particularly

significant for franchise titles, family films and

pictures with a nailed-on older audience.

Film DisTribUTor 2019 sAles % PHysiCAl % DiGiTAl

1 Bohemian Rhapsody 20th Century Fox 1,700,683 67.2 32.8

2 Avengers: Endgame Disney 1,305,647 59.2 40.8

3 Toy Story 4 Disney 789,310 67.6 32.4

4 Mary Poppins Returns Disney 717,909 75.1 24.9

5 A Star Is Born Warner Bros. 701,984 92.5 7.5

6 The Lion King Disney 659,561 71.9 28.1

7 Venom Sony 653,497 66.3 33.7

8 Captain Marvel Disney 638,187 70.5 29.5

9 Aladdin Disney 637,092 67.3 32.7

10 Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Warner Bros. 591,862 95.0 5.0

11 Rocketman Paramount 507,821 70.8 29.2

12 Aquaman Warner Bros. 507,521 92.2 7.8

13 Spider-Man: Far from Home Sony 501,685 63.8 36.2

14 The Greatest Showman 20th Century Fox 468,229 58.5 41.5

15 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Sony 404,007 66.1 33.9

16 Bumblebee Paramount 400,728 66.2 33.8

17 John Wick - Chapter 3 - Parabellum Lionsgate 397,844 65.5 34.5

18 Dumbo Disney 392,146 77.2 22.8

19 The Grinch Universal 353,865 50.6 49.4

20 Avengers: Infinity War Disney 342,329 58.9 41.1

OCC

The War at Home

Streaming is the new normal. With linear terrestrial

TV viewing dominated by the call for reality

television, news and live sports, on demand is on

the rise and the choice of outlets and content is

about to escalate dramatically. Traditional film

studios, tv conglomerates and tech producers

alike will battle it out for consumer attention.

It seems an age since Netflix pivoted their DVD

postal service and started what is currently the

world’s largest subscription streaming service. Shortly

after they were producing their own TV content with

the David Fincher helmed House Of Cards, then

film soon followed with first feature, Cary Fukunaga’s

Beasts of No Nation. Cut to today, and Netflix boast

a ubiquitous brand, an expansive catalogue including

hit shows such as Mindhunter, The Crown and

Stranger Things, as well as recent exclusive work

from Martin Scorsese and Noah Baumbach, and

176 million paid subscribers across 190 countries.

The question now is, how long can that success

continue? The field of play has been relatively

empty of combatants in recent years. Amazon

Prime Video has stood as the main competitor,

offering a similar service with a plethora of shows

and films on a moving cycle. Their first own-made

work was dark detective drama Bosch, and

as Amazon Studios came to life, Spike Lee’s

polemical Chi-Raq, a modern reworking of

Aristophanes' Lysistrata, proved a bold first film

bow. Recent Amazon TV hits have included

The Grand Tour, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and

Good Omens whilst their film output featured work

with Adam Driver, Mindy Kaling, Emma Thompson

and Felicity Jones among others. Amazon Prime

has over 150m paid subscribers worldwide.

There are two key points of difference to Amazon’s

platform: their coverage of live sport and the

ability to purchase, stream & download premium

content not covered by the subscription charge.

However, what really separates Amazon from

Netfilx lies in the platform being just one element

in their revenue stream, with customers paying a

fee that includes Prime delivery and music services

too. Having a wider purview than just content

creation and curation is something Amazon has

in common with the newer players entering the

streaming arena and it’s about to get crowded.

In November, Disney launched their own streaming

platform Disney+ in the US and Canada. Reports

of subscription numbers for the first 3 months’ run

of the platform were impressive and confirmed

by the 28.5m users CEO Bob Iger announced

recently. Like Amazon, their platform is only a tiny

piece of the Disney jigsaw and exists alongside

an empire of theme parks, cruises and global

merchandising. With sub strands like Marvel,

Pixar and Lucasfilm complementing the already

strong brand, it makes for an attractive package.

Similarly, Apple launched Apple TV+ in

November across 106 countries, though have

yet to report subscriber numbers. Their unique

slant of lifestyle through must-have consumer

hardware has already created 700 million

iPhone users worldwide. For Apple, leveraging

their existing customer base is key and each new

piece of consumer tech purchased now comes

with a free 1-year subscription to Apple TV+.

Netflix failed to reach their 4th quarter new

subscriber estimates for 2019 in the US and

Canada, and it is probably safe to assume that

Disney were at least part of the equation in that

shortfall. Although this was the third quarter in

a row that this happened in the US, and their

own saturation levels may also be a factor.

Internationally, Netflix surpassed subscriber

targets by a country mile, but will no longer

engage on numbers in specific territories and

will only refer to their worldwide subscribers.

Disney+ is bound for these shores and Europe

in March (they’re already operating in The

Netherlands), though they are not alone. Warner

Media’s HBO Max and NBCUniversal’s Peacock

are also on the horizon, along with recently

launched ITV and BBC joint venture Britbox.

Stateside, streaming veteran Hulu is now fully

owned by Disney, independent platform Quibi is

soon to launch and Viacom/CBS's Pluto will launch

in Latin America after success in both the US and

Europe. All will be waiting, West Side Story-style

for a ruck over who has the biggest share of telly.

This is a golden period for consumers, as choice

is paramount and there’s a lot on the menu. That

said, how many services can the average family

budget support? All look to be reasonably priced

at present, yet when the costs start mounting up,

will consumers vote with their feet?

extra-Terrestrial

As broadcast TV declines with audiences under 50,

traditional terrestrial channels look for new ways to

reach viewers. The ITV hub has 30m registered users,

some way ahead of All 4’s 20 million. The BBC’s

long-established iPlayer has lost users in recent years

and commands just 15% of the overall UK streaming

market, dropping from 40% dominance 5 years

ago. These well-established catch-up services are

available through many outlets and pre-installed

on well over 90% of TV’s sold in the country.

115

116

mosT WATCHeD Tv sHoWs in 2019 ToP 20 Films sHoWn on UK Tv in 2019

ProGrAmme

CHAnnel

ConsoliDATeD

no. vieWers

1 Gavin and Stacey 26 Dec BBC 1 17.1m

2 I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! 25 Dec BBC 1 12.6m

3 Strictly Come Dancing: Final 15 Dec ITV 12.6m

4 Line of Duty 5 Jan ITV 12.1m

5 Strictly Come Dancing 24 Dec BBC 1 11.3m

6 New Year's Eve Fireworks 24 Dec BBC 1 10.7m

7 Britain's Got Talent 1 Jan BBC 1 10.2m

8 The Great British Bake Off 25 Dec BBC 1 9.8m

9 His Dark Materials 31 Dec ITV 9.4m

10 Rugby World Cup 2019 24 Dec CH4 9.2m

ProGrAmme

Tx

DATe

ToP sHoWs on bbC iPlAyer 2019

vieWs

1 Killing Eve: Series 2 40.3m

2 Line of Duty: Series 5 27.3m

3 Peaky Blinders: Series 5 26.6m

4 Strictly Come Dancing: Series 17 23.8m

5 Killing Eve: Series 1 22.3m

6 Fleabag: Series 2 20.3m

7 The Apprentice: Series 15 19.9m

8 The Capture: Series 1 19.2m

9 MasterChef: Series 15 19m

10 Silent Witness: Series 22 18.1m

BARB

Film

Tx

DATe

CHAnnel

% sHAre oF

vieWinG

Tvrs

1 Paddington 2 26 Dec BBC 1 30.33 10.41

2 Finding Dory 25 Dec BBC 1 32.66 7.526

3 Elf 15 Dec ITV 22.48 7.378

4

Fantastic Beasts and

Where to Find Them

5 Jan ITV 22.92 7.349

5 Frozen 24 Dec BBC 1 30.45 6.238

6 Beauty & The Beast 24 Dec BBC 1 19.72 5.956

7 Inside Out 1 Jan BBC 1 18.36 5.834

8 Moana 25 Dec BBC 1 31.03 5.676

9 SPECTRE 31 Dec ITV 18.58 5.202

10 Home Alone 24 Dec CH4 16.90 5.128

11 The BFG 22 Dec BBC 1 16.83 4.866

12


Order of the Phoenix

3 Nov ITV 15.68 4.692

13 The Jungle Book 1 Jan BBC 1 18.57 4.662

14

Home Alone 2:

Lost in New York

25 Dec CH4 13.83 4.535

15 Elf 24 Dec ITV 15.70 4.459

16 Harry Potter and the

Half-Blood Prince 10 Nov ITV 13.17 4.418

17 Harry Potter and the

Chamber of Secrets

13 Oct ITV 15.02 4.415

18 Skyfall 26 Dec ITV 13.31 4.226

19



1 Dec ITV 14.69 4.206

20


Goblet of Fire

27 Oct ITV 12.65 4.203

BBC data Dec 2019

BARB

We’re gaming,

we’re gaming

The usually hardy UK video games market shrunk a

little last year, down 3.4% to £3.77bn. It remains

Europe's second largest video game market

(behind Germany) and the 5th largest in the world.

The ERA suggest that this dip (the first in almost a

decade) is in fact due to gamers keenly waiting for

the new X-Box and Playstation editions to be

launched. VR also saw a drop, as early adopters

waited for the next evolution of hardware. Physical

purchases of games declined more than 20% in

2019, whilst there was a slight increase in online

and mobile gaming of 1.1% to £3.17bn.

ToP sellinG GAmes 2019

Mobile gaming is big business, and in the UK alone

revenues surpassed £1bn in 2019. Whilst console

gaming remains hugely popular, the ubiquity of the

smart phone is pushing more casual gamers to play

on the move. Nintendo’s Switch console is the first

and currently the only machine which acts as both a

console and a portable machine. Expect the next

generations of Xbox and Playstation to follow suit.

Worldwide gaming phenomenon Fortnite

attracted ever more in-home and mobile players,

leveraging the environment as a social

experience. Combining shoot ‘em up last player

standing battle royale contests with Minecraftstyle

construction, the game amassed a colossal

250 million subscribed global players as of

GAme

March 2019. Fortnite is free to enter, with players

able to make in-app purchases of clothes and

weapons to enrich the online experience,

exclusivity being the driver with items/sets

available for a short time only.

Big ticket tie-ins have become a cornerstone of

the player experience and film team-ups with the

likes of John Wick, Star Wars and Avengers have

all been hugely successful. The biggest to date

was a collaboration with musician Marshmello,

who played a live set to over 10 million players

within the game. In 2019 Fortnite dipped a little

from the previous record-breaking year (2018

saw $2.4bn in global revenue), yet still delivered

an impressive $1.8bn return.

UniTs solD

1 FIFA 20 1,502,191

2 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1,192,211

3 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe 465,062

4 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 438,465

5 Red Dead Redemption 2 306,392

6 FIFA 19 278,417

7 Pokémon Sword 273,991

8 Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled 267,285

9 Grand Theft Auto V 247,357

10 Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 237,226

ERA

117

118

Call it a comeback

UK music listening flourished in 2019 with more than

150m albums purchased or streamed, generating total

revenue of £1.4bn. This was the highest level of music

consumption since 2006, when Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open

was the biggest selling album and Crazy by Gnarls

Barkley was the no.1 single for the year.

Through the likes of Spotify, Apple, Amazon and Deezer,

over 114bn tracks were streamed for over £1bn in

revenue, up 23% versus 2018.

Streatham-based London rapper Dave won the 2019

Mercury Prize with his debut album Psychodrama,

the 20th best-selling album of the year.

Paint it black

Whilst physical music sales were down 17% on 2018,

thanks largely to the decline in CD purchases, according to

the vinylfactory.com, UK vinyl sales increased by 6.4% to

£97m in 2019, moving over 4.3m albums. With a 12th

consecutive year of growth for the format, vinyl now

accounts for 1 in every 8 albums purchased across all

physical and digital formats in the UK. Vinyl sales have

now overtaken the market from digital downloads, and for

the first time in 20 years, vinyl also outsold its CD cousin.

National Record Store Day was Saturday 13 April in 2019,

when the nations’ vinyl junkies headed in droves to their

local record parlours to eagerly pick up limited editions

and rarities. Each year has an ambassador from the

entertainment world, in 2019 it was avant-garde comedy

duo The Mighty Boosh. This day of vinyl celebration is now

firmly established in the music fans’ annual calendar.

ToP 20 AlbUms 2019

TiTle ArTisT lAbel

1 Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent Lewis Capaldi EMI

2 Nos Collaborations Project Ed Sheeran Asylum

3 When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go Billie Eilish Interscope

4 Staying at Tamara’s George Ezra Columbia

5 Bohemian Rhapsody Ost Queen Virgin

6 Thank U Next Ariana Grande Republic Records

7 What a Time to Be Alive Tom Walker Relentless

8 You’re in My Heart Rod Stewart Rhino

9 Divide Ed Sheeran Asylum

10 The Christmas Present Robbie Williams Columbia

11 50 Years Don’t Stop Fleetwood Mac Rhino

12 Everyday Life Coldplay Parlophone

13 Diamonds Elton John Mercury/Umc

14 Always In Between Jess Glynne Atlantic

15 The Platinum Collection Queen Virgin

16 Don’t Smile at Me Billie Eilish Interscope

17 Dua Lipa Dua Lipa Warner Records

18 Hollywood’s Bleeding Post Malone Republic Records

19 Back Together Michael Ball & Alfie Boe Decca

20 Psychodrama Dave Dave Neighbourhood

OCC

ToP 20 soUnDTrACK AlbUms 2019

TiTle ArTisT PHysiCAl

DoWnloADs

AlbUm sTreAms

1 The Greatest Showman Motion Picture Cast Recording 211,069 44,131 268,644

2 Bohemian Rhapsody - Ost Queen 84,516 8,642 238,086

3 A Star Is Born Motion Picture Cast Recording 118,814 34,005 89,599

4 Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Motion Picture Cast Recording 49,573 9,834 57,631

5 Rocketman Motion Picture Cast Recording 33,882 5,877 21,154

6 Hamilton Original Broadway Cast 8,429 5,336 46,427

7 Last Christmas - Ost George Michael & Wham 45,832 2,939 9,388

8 Mamma Mia Motion Picture Cast Recording 14,621 4,666 29,990

9 Iron Man 2 - Ost AC/DC 3,764 2,216 38,132

10 Six - The Musical Original Cast Recording 3,061 5,533 26,240

11 Guardians of the Galaxy - Awesome Mix 1 Original Soundtrack 26,851 7,247 0

12 Keep Hauling - Ost Fisherman's Friends 24,169 2,934 2,047

13 The Lion King Original Soundtrack 2,781 2,275 23,911

14 Dear Evan Hansen Original Broadway Cast 3,387 1,889 20,254

15 Peaky Blinders Original Soundtrack 24,618 877 0

16 The Searcher - Ost Elvis Presley 563 10 24,776

17 Aladdin Original Soundtrack 15,680 5,138 4,345

18 Mary Poppins Returns Original Soundtrack 17,061 4,483 791

19 The Dirt - Ost Motley Crue 4,331 1,379 16,164

20 Guardians of the Galaxy - Awesome Mix 2 Original Soundtrack 14,805 5,904 0

119

OCC

ToP 10 sinGles 2019

TiTle ArTisT lAbel

1 Someone You Loved Lewis Capaldi EMI

2 Old Town Road Lil Nas X Lil Nas X

3 I Don't Care Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber Asylum/Def Jam

4 Bad Guy Billie Eilish Interscope

5 Giant Calvin Harris & Rag’n’Bone Man Columbia

6 Sweet but Psycho Ava Max Atlantic

7 Vossi Bop Stormzy Atlantic/Merky

8 Dance Monkey Tones & I Parlophone

9 Don't Call Me Up Mabel Polydor

10 Señorita Shawn Mendes/Camila Cabello EMI/Syco Music

mosT seArCHeD sonGs on sHAzAm UK 2019

ToP sellinG vinyl AlbUms 2019

OCC

sonG

ArTisT

AlbUm

ArTisT

120

Bad Guy

Someone You Loved

Dance Monkey

Calma (Remix)

Piece Of Your Heart

Con Calma

Señorita

Old Town Road

Sweet But Psycho

Giant

Billie Eilish

Lewis Capaldi

Tones And I

Pedro Capó & Farruko

Meduza feat. Goodboys

Daddy Yankee feat. Snow

Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello

Lil Nas X

Ava Max

Calvin Harris & Rag’n’Bone Man

1 Why Me? Why Not. Liam Gallagher

2 When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go Billie Eilish

3 Rumours Fleetwood Mac

4 Greatest Hits Queen

5 Abbey Road Beatles

6 Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent Lewis Capaldi

7 The Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd

8 Definitely Maybe Oasis

9 Unknown Pleasures Joy Division

10 Legacy David Bowie

Shazam

OCC

ToP 20 besTsellinG booKs oF 2019 - overAll UK CHArT ACross All Genres

TiTle AUTHor PUbliCATion DATe 2019

1 Pinch of Nom Kate Allinson and Kay Featherstone 21 Mar 2019

2 The Tattooist of Auschwitz Heather Morris 4 Oct 2018

3 The World’s Worst Teachers David Walliams 27 Jun 2019

4 Fing David Walliams 21 Feb 2019

5 Hinch Yourself Happy Mrs Hinch 4 Apr 2019

6 This Is Going to Hurt Adam Kay 19 Apr 2018

7 Nine Perfect Strangers Liane Moriarty 7 Mar 2019

8 The Beast of Buckingham Palace David Walliams 21 Nov 2019

9 Veg Jamie Oliver 22 Aug 2019

10 Still Me Jojo Moyes 7 Feb 2019

11 Past Tense Lee Child 4 Apr 2019

12 The Testaments Margaret Atwood 10 Sep 2019

13 Normal People Sally Rooney 2 May 2019

14 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman 25 Jan 2018

15 Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas Adam Kay 17 Oct 2019

16 The Wonky Donkey Craig Smith 1 Nov 2018

17 Mrs Hinch: The Activity Journal Mrs Hinch 17 Oct 2019

18 Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid Jeff Kinney 9 Apr 2019

19 First Man In Ant Middleton 7 Mar 2019

20 The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Charlie Mackesy 10 Oct 2019

Bookscan/Guardian

The UK book market

2019 saw a small rise

of 3% in digital sales

to £2.6bn, and a 5%

drop in physical sales

to £3.4bn. Audiobooks

are where the real

growth lies, with sales

income up 43% to £69m.

Audiobooks ably

complement our busy,

increasingly time-poor

lives on the go. Amazon’s

Audible has cornered the

market with over 200,000

titles to choose from.

Waterstone’s book

of The year was

Charles Mackesy’s The

Boy, the Mole, the Fox,

and the Horse - a book

of inspirational paintings

and delicate calligraphy

in a moving study of

friendship. Their author

of the year was

environmental activist

Greta Thunberg.

121

122

Almanac

FDA MeMbers OUr CUrrENT DIvErSE mEmBErShIP OF 31 UK FILm DISTrIBUTOrS ACCOUNTS FOr 99% OF UK CINEmAGOING

Altitude Film entertainment

34 Fouberts Place, London W1F 7PX

Tel 020 7478 7612 altitudefilment.com

Arrow Films

The Engine House

Shenley Park, Radlett Lane

Shenley, Herts WD7 9JP

Tel 01923 858306 arrowfilms.com

bulldog Film Distribution

Hanover House (3rd floor)

118 Queen’s Road, Brighton BN1 3XG

Tel 01273 766399 bulldog-film.com

Curzon Artificial eye

20–22 Stukeley Street

London WC2B 5LR

Tel 020 7240 5353

curzonartificialeye.com

Dartmouth Films

Somerset House, Strand

London WC2R 1LA

Tel 020 7845 5857

dartmouthfilms.com

Dogwoof

Ground Floor, Overseas House

19–23 Ironmonger Row

London EC1V 3QN

Tel 020 7253 6244 dogwoof.com

entertainment Film Distributors

Eagle House, 108-110 Jermyn Street

London SW1Y 6HB

Tel 020 7930 7744

youtube.com/EFDfilms

entertainment one (eone)

45 Warren Street, London W1T 6AG

Tel 020 3691 8600

entertainmentone.com

eros international

Unit 23, Sovereign Park, Coronation

Road, Park Royal, London NW10 7QP

Tel 020 7935 2727 erosplc.com

lionsgate

45 Mortimer Street (5th floor)

London W1W 8HJ

Tel 020 7299 8800 lionsgatefilms.co.uk

mUbi

1 Newburgh Street, London W1F 7RB

mubi.com

munro Film services

4 Woburn Avenue

Theydon Bois, Essex CM16 7JS

Tel 01992 814 621

munrofilmservices.co.uk

network releasing

19–20 Berghem Mews

Blythe Road, London W14 OHN

Tel 020 7605 4435 networkonair.com

Paramount Pictures

Building 5, Chiswick Park

566 Chiswick High Road

London W4 5YF

Tel 020 3184 2100 paramount.co.uk

Park Circus

27 Beak Street, London W1F 9RU

Tel 020 7734 8595 parkcircus.com

Pathé Productions

6 Ramillies Street (4th floor)

London W1F 7TY

Tel 020 7323 5151 pathe.co.uk

Peccadillo Pictures

Unit NH.509, E1 Studios

7 Whitechapel Road, London E1 1DU

Tel 020 3617 4979 peccapics.com

reliance big entertainment

relianceentertainment.com

republic Film Distribution

44 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4LL

republicfilmdistribution.co.uk

sony Pictures releasing

Sony Pictures Europe House

25 Golden Square, London W1F 6LU

Tel 020 7533 1111 sonypictures.co.uk

studioCanal

4 Pancras Square, London N1C 4AG

Tel 020 7534 2700 studiocanal.co.uk

sTx entertainment

Strand Bridge House, 138–142 Strand

London WC2R 1HH

Tel: 020 3903 1200 stxentertainment.com

Thunderbird releasing

Tel 020 7377 1407

thunderbirdreleasing.com

Trafalgar releasing

32a–37 Cowper Street (1st floor)

London EC2A 4AW

Tel 020 3859 7211 trafalgar-releasing.com

Trinity Filmed entertainment

42a Charlotte Street

London W1T 2NP

Tel 020 7297 9370 trinityfilm.co.uk

Universal Pictures international

1 Central St. Giles

St. Giles High Street

WC2H 8NU

Tel 020 3618 8000

universalpictures.co.uk

vertigo releasing

Kenilworth House

79-80 Margaret Street

London W1W 8TA

Tel 020 3141 3440 vertigofilms.com

verve Pictures

Kenilworth House

79–80 Margaret Street

London W1W 8TA

Tel 020 7436 8001 vivaverve.com

Walt Disney studios motion Pictures

3 Queen Caroline Street

Hammersmith, London W6 9PE

Tel 020 8222 1000 disney.co.uk

Warner bros. entertainment

98 Theobald’s Road

London WC1X 8WB

Tel 020 7984 5000 warnerbros.co.uk

yash raj Films

Vista Centre, 50 Salisbury Road

Hounslow, Middx TW4 6JQ

Tel 0870 739 7345 yashrajfilms.com

123

2020 Highlights

124

2020 looks like

another terrific year

for cinemagoing

and highlights of

the exciting slate

of films include:

1917

Ammonite

Artemis Fowl

Bad Boys for Life

A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

Bill & Ted Face the Music

Birds of Prey

Black Widow

Bloodshot

Bombshell

Call of the Wild

Candyman

Collective

Coming 2 America

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Death on the Nile

Dolittle

Dream Horse

Dune

Ema

Emma

Eternals

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Fantasy Island

Fast & Furious 9

The Father

Free Guy

The French Dispatch

The Gentlemen

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Godzilla vs. Kong

Greenland

Gretel & Hansel

Halloween Kills

How to Build a Girl

In The Heights

The Invisible Man

Jojo Rabbit

Jungle Cruise

The King's Man

The Last Duel

Last Night in Soho

Legally Blonde 3

Les Misérables

The Little Things

The Lodge

The Many Saints of Newark

Military Wives

Minions 2

Misbehaviour

Monster Hunter

Morbius

Mulan

The New Mutants

No Time To Die

Onward

Parasite

The Personal History of David Copperfield

Peter Rabbit 2

A Quiet Place 2

Radioactive

Rocks

Saint Maud

Scoob!

The Secret Garden

Sonic the Hedgehog

Soul

Summerland

Tenet

Top Gun: Maverick

Trolls 2

True History of the Kelly Gang

West Side Story

The Witches

Wonder Woman 1984

DIreCtorY oF sCreenInG rooMs

bbFC

3 Soho Square

London W1D 3HDT

Tel 020 7440 1590

projection@bbfc.co.uk

bbfc.co.uk

birkbeck Cinema

43 Gordon Square

London WC1H 0PD

Tel 020 7631 6271

roombookings@bbk.ac.uk

bbk.ac.uk/roombookings/audiovisual/cinema

bulgari Hotel – The richard

Attenborough screening room

171 Knightsbridge

London SW7 1DW

Tel 020 7151 1010

london@bulgarihotels.com

bulgarihotels.com

Charlotte street Hotel

15–17 Charlotte Street

London W1T 1RJ

Tel 020 7287 4434

events@firmdale.com

firmdalehotels.com

Courthouse Doubletree

Hilton Hotel

19–21 Great Marlborough Street

London W1F 7HL

Tel 020 7297 5555

conference@courthouse-hotel.com

courthouse-hotel.com

Covent Garden Hotel

10 Monmouth Street

London WC2H 9HB

Tel 020 7287 4434

events@firmdale.com

firmdalehotels.com

Warner bros. De lane lea

75 Dean Street

London W1D 3PU

Tel 020 7432 3800

preview@wbdelanelea.com

wbsound.com/London

The ray Dolby Theatre

4–6 Soho Square

London W1D 3PZ

Tel 020 7406 3175

theatre@dolby.co.uk

dolby.co.uk

Ham yard Theatre

1 Ham Yard

London W1D 7DT

Tel 020 3642 2000

events@firmdale.com

firmdale.com

Heavy entertainment

111 Wardour Street

London W1F 0UH

Tel 020 7494 1000

info@heavy-entertainment.com

heavy-entertainment.com

The Hospital Club

24 Endell Street

London WC2H 9HQ

Tel 020 7180 9148

events@thehospitalclub.com

thehospitalclub.com

The mayfair Hotel

Stratton Street

London W1J 8LT

Tel 020 7915 3898

events@themayfairhotel.co.uk

themayfairhotel.co.uk

moving Picture Company (mPC)

127 Wardour Street

London W1F 0NL

Tel 020 7434 3100

london@moving-picture.com

moving-picture.com

one Aldwych

One Aldwych

London WC2B 4BZ

Tel 020 7300 0700

events@onealdwych.com

onealdwych.com

one Great George street

One Great George Street

London SW1P 3AA

Tel 020 7665 2323

info@onegreatgeorgestreet.com

onegreatgeorgestreet.com

regent street Cinema

309 Regent Street

London W1B 2UW

Tel 020 7911 5802

enquiries@regentstreetcinema.com

regentstreetcinema.com

The soho Hotel

4 Richmond Mews

London W1D 3DH

Tel 020 7287 4434

events@firmdale.com

firmdalehotels.com

soho House

76 Dean Street

London W1D 3SZ

Tel 020 3006 0076

projection76@sohohouse.com

sohohousedeanstreet.com

soho screening rooms

14 D’Arblay Street

London W1F 8DY

Tel 020 7437 1771

chalky@sohoscreeningrooms.co.uk

sohoscreeningrooms.co.uk

W london leicester square

10 Wardour Street

London W1D 6QF

Tel 020 7758 1000

screeningroom@wlondon.co.uk

wlondon.co.uk

125

Networking in the Film Industry

Other film industry sites offering information:

Alliance for intellectual Property

www.allianceforip.co.uk

Digital Cinema media

dcm.co.uk

mediCinema

medicinema.org.uk

british Academy of Film and Television Arts

bafta.org

Directors UK

directorsuk.com

national Film and Television school

nfts.co.uk

126

british Association for screen entertainment

baseorg.uk

british board of Film Classification

bbfc.co.uk

british Film institute

bfi.org.uk

british independent Film Awards

bifa.film

british screen Forum

britishscreenforum.co.uk

Creative england

creativeengland.co.uk

Creative scotland

creativescotland.com

Department for Digital, Culture,

media & sport (DCms)

culture.gov.uk

event Cinema Association

eventcinemaassociation.org

Film Content Protection Agency

launchingfilms.com

Film london

filmlondon.org.uk

The Film space

thefilmspace.org

The Film & Television Charity

filmtvcharity.org.uk

independent Cinema office

independencinemaoffice.org.uk

into Film

intofilm.org

london Film school

lfs.org.uk

Pearl & Dean

pearlanddean.com

Producers’ Alliance for Cinema and Television

pact.co.uk

screenskills

screenskills.com

UK Cinema Association

cinemauk.org.uk

UK meDiA Desk/Creative europe Desk UK

creativeeuropeuk.eu

Further websites and information can be found

in the links section of launchingfilms.com

2020

Events

Diary

2020 brings a packed diary of

cultural, sporting and film industry

events, here are some of the key dates:

● sundance Film Festival 23 January-2 February

● rugby Union six nations Championship 1 February-14 March

● ee british Academy Film Awards 2 February

● Academy Awards 9 February

● berlin Film Festival 20 February-1 March

● red nose Day 13 March

● mothers' Day 22 March

● CinemaCon, las vegas 30 March-2 April

● The Grand national 2-4 April

● london marathon 26 April

● Cannes Film Festival 12-23 May

● rHs Chelsea Flower show 19-23 May

● european rugby Champions Cup Final 23 May

● FA Cup Final 23 May

● UeFA Champions league Final 30 May

● UeFA euro 2020 Championships 12 June-12 July

● Fathers' Day 21 June

● Cineeurope, barcelona 22-25 June

● Glastonbury Festival 24-28 June

● Wimbledon Championships 29 June-12 July

● rugby league Challenge Cup Final 18 July

● british Grand Prix 19 July

● Comic-Con, san Diego 23-26 July

● olympic Games, Tokyo 24 July-9 August

● Paralympic Games, Tokyo 25 August-6 September

● venice international Film Festival 26 August-5 September

● reading and leeds Festival 28-30 August

● Toronto international Film Festival 10-20 September

● showeast, miami 19-22 October

● American Film market, santa monica 4-11 November

● CineAsia, bangkok 7-10 December

127

Film Festivals 2020

The UK and Ireland has a rich tapestry

of year round regional film festivals,

offering something for everyone,

including the following:

128

london short

Film Festival

10-19 January

shortfilms.org.uk

Dublin international

Film Festival

25 February-8 March

diff.ie

Glasgow Film Festival

26 Feb-8 March

glasgowfilm.org

Crystal Palace

Film Festival

5-28 March

cpiff.co.uk

Feminista Film

estival & Tour

8 March

feminista.co.uk

bFi Flare, london

lGbTQ+ Film Festival

18-29 March

whatson.bfi.org.uk/flare

oxford international

short Film Festival

28-29 March

www.oxiff.com

leeds international

Film Festival

30 March-14 April

leedsfilm.com

belfast Film Festival

1-9 April

belfastfilmfestival.org

raindance Film Festival

25-26 April

raindance.org

sci-Fi-london

12-20 May

sc-fi-london.com

shots in the Dark

28-31 May

www.broadway.org.uk

Celtic media Festival

2-4 June

celticmediafestival.co.uk

sheffield Doc/Fest

4-9 June

sheffdocfest.com

edinburgh international

Film Festival

17-28 June

edfilmfest.org.uk

Galway Film Fleadh

7-12 July

galwayfilmfleadh.com

Chichester international

Film Festival

13-30 August

chichesterfilmfestival.co.uk

FrightFest

27-31 August

frightfest.co.uk

bFi london Film Festival

7-18 October

whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff

Cambridge Film Festival

17-24 October

cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk

Africa in motion

Film Festival

25 October-3 November

africa-in-motion.org.uk

Aesthetica short

Film Festival

4-8 November

asff.co.uk

into Film Festival

4-20 November

intofilm.org/events

norwich Film Festival

6-15 November

norwichfilmfestival.co.uk

Filmbath

7-17 November

filmbath.org.uk

CineCity brighton

Film Festival

13-22 November

cine-city.co.uk

Abertoir international

Horror Festival of Wales

abertoir.co.uk

birds eye view

Film Festival

birds-eye-view.co.uk

birmingham

Film Festival

birminghamfilmfestival.co.uk

bristol Film Festival

bristolfilmfestival.com

british Urban

Film Festival

britishurbanfilmfestival.co.uk

Cardiff international

Film Festival

theciff.co.uk

Cinemagic

cinemagic.org.uk

Cork Film Festival

corkfilmfest.org

east end Film Festival

eastendfilmfestival.com

Fringe! Queer

Film & Arts Fest

fringefilmfest.com

liverpool Film Festival

liviff.com

london indian

Film Festival

londonindianfilmfestival.co.uk

manchester Film Festival

maniff.com

Purbeck Film Festival

purbeckfilm.com

UK Jewish Film Festival

ukjewishfilm.org

Wes Fest

www.wesfest.co.uk

In Memoriam

Gone,

but not forgotten. On this page we fondly remember

those who we lost from the industry over the last year.

Julie Adams (1926-2019)

Danny Aiello (1933-2019)

Nicholas Amer (1923-2019)

Knut Andersen (1931-2019)

Bibi Andersson (1935-2019)

Carmen Argenziano (1943-2019)

René Auberjonois (1940-2019)

Claudine Auger (1941-2019)

Ben Barenholtz (1935-2019)

Paul Benjamin (1938-2019)

Susan Bernard (1948-2019)

Frank Biondi (1945-2019)

Verna Bloom (1938-2019)

Rosemarie Bowe (1932-2019)

Cameron Boyce (1999-2019)

Tony Britton (1924-2019)

Kobe Bryant (1978-2020)

Carmine Caridi (1934-2019)

Diahann Carroll (1935-2019)

Sue Casey (1926-2019)

Seymour Cassel (1935-2019)

Carol Channing (1921-2019)

Martin Charnin (1934-2019)

Larry Cohen (1936-2019)

Raphael Coleman (1994-2020)

Franco Columbu (1941-2019)

Tim Conway (1933-2019)

Dick Dale (1937-2019)

Valentina Cortese (1923-2019)

Paul Darrow (1941-2019)

Windsor Davies (1930-2019)

Doris Day (1924-2019)

Stanley Donen (1924-2019)

Kirk Douglas (1916-2020)

Billy Drago (1945-2019)

Bob Einstein (1942-2019)

Josip Elic (1921-2019)

Hannelore Elsner (1942-2019)

Georgia Engel (1948-2019)

Richard Erdman (1925-2019)

Robert Evans (1930-2019)

Nick Finlayson (1953-2019)

Albert Finney (1936-2019)

Wayne Fitzgerald (1930-2019)

Peter Fonda (1940-2019)

Robert Forster (1941-2019)

David Foster (1929-2019)

Derek Fowlds (1937-2019)

Clement von

Franckenstein (1944-2019)

James Frawley (1936-2019)

Mike Frift (1941-2019)

Yasuo Furuhata (1934-2019)

Bruno Ganz (1941-2019)

Eddie Garcia (1929-2019)

Tony Garnett (1936-2020)

Robert Garrison (1960-2019)

Nigel Goldsack (1957-2019)

Steve Golin (1955-2019)

Brendan Grace (1951-2019)

Sid Haig (1939-2019)

Valerie Harper (1939-2019)

Susan Harrison (1938-2019)

Tom Hatten (1926-2019)

Rutger Hauer (1944-2019)

David Hedison (1927-2019)

Katherine Helmond (1929-2019)

Del Henney (1935-2019)

Buck Henry (1930-2020)

Nicky Henson (1945-2019)

Jean Heywood (1921-2019)

Nancy Holloway (1932-2019)

Norman Hollyn (1952-2019)

Glyn Houston (1025-2019)

Peter Hughes (1922-2019)

David Hurst (1926-2019)

Neil Innes (1944-2019)

Clive James (1939-2019)

Larry “Flash”

Jenkins (1955-2019)

Dr. John (1941-2019)

Freddie Jones (1927-2019)

Terry Jones (1942-2020)

Isaac Kappy (1977-2019)

Anna Karina (1940-2019)

Barrie Keeffe (1945-2019)

Noah Keen (1920-2019)

Edward Kelsey (1930-2019)

Jeremy Kemp (1935-2019)

Ken Kercheval (1935-2019)

Paul Koslo (1994-2019)

Machiko Kyō (1924-2019)

Paul LeBlanc (1946-2019)

Michel Legrand (1932-2019)

Edward Lewis (1919-2019)

Gerry Lewis (1929-2020)

Ron Leibman (1937-2019)

Pierre Lhomme (1930-2019)

Peggy Lipton (1946-2019)

George Litto (1930-2019)

John Llewellyn

Moxey (1925-2019)

Carol Lynley (1942-2019)

Michael Lynne (1941-2019)

Sue Lyon (1946-2019)

John Mahony (1925-2020)

Barry Malkin (1938-2019)

Tania Mallet (1941-2019)

Bryan Marshall (1938-2019)

Mardik Martin (1934-2019)

Peter Mayhew (1944-2019)

John McEnery (1943-2019)

Fay McKenzie (1918-2019)

Bronco McLoughlin (1938-2019)

Syd Mead (1933-2019)

Jonas Mekas (1922-2019)

J. Michael Mendel (1964-2019)

Serge Merlin (1932-2019)

Doris Merrick (1919-2019)

Sylvia Miles (1924-2019)

Dick Miller (1928-2019)

Sir Jonathan Miller (1934-2019)

Ron Miller (1933-2019)

Robert Milli (1933-2019)

Royce Mills (1942-2019)

Stephen Moore (1937-2019)

Louisa Moritz (1936-2019)

Shelley Morrison (1936-2019)

Mya-Lecia Naylor (2002-2019)

Peter Nichols (1927-2019)

Denise Nickerson (1957-2019)

Kathleen O’Malley (1924-2019)

Terry O'Neill (1938-2019)

Paolo Paoloni (1929-2019)

Nicholas Parsons (1923-2020)

Ivan Passer (1933-2020)

Lawrence G. Paull (1938-2019)

Muriel Pavlow (1921-2019)

D.A. Pennebaker (1925-2019)

Luke Perry (1966-2019)

Barrington Pheloung (1954-2019)

Joseph Pilato (1949-2019)

Michael J. Pollard (1939-2019)

Nik Powell (1950-2019)

Andre Previn (1929-2019)

Harold Prince (1928-2019)

Francois Protat (1945-2019)

Anna Quayle (1932-2019)

Milton Quon (1913-2019)

Sid Ramin (1919-2019)

Terry Rawlings (1933-2019)

Nadja Regin (1931-2019)

Don Reynolds (1937-2019)

Nick Roddick (1945-2019)

Gregg Rudloff (1955-2019)

Alvin Sargeant (1927-2019)

Elizabeth Sellars (1921-2019)

Peter Scott (1935-2020)

W. Morgan Sheppard (1932-2019)

Teddi Sherman (1921-2019)

Helen Shingler (1919-2019)

John Singleton (1968-2019)

Caroll Spinney (1933-2019)

Clive Swift (1936-2019)

Brian Tarantina (1959-2019)

Nathaniel Taylor (1938-2019)

Niall Toibin (1929-2019)

Darlene Tompkins (1940-2019)

Peter Tork (1942-2019)

Rip Torn (1931-2019)

Piero Tosi (1927-2019)

Mark Urman (1952-2019)

Andrew G. Vajna (1944-2019)

Valerie Van Ost (1944-2019)

Agnes Varda (1928-2019)

Vinny Vella (1947-2019)

Jan-Michael Vincent (1944-2019)

Robert Walker Jr. (1940-2019)

Scott Walker (1943-2019)

David Weisman (1942-2019)

Bradley Welsh (1977-2019)

John Wesley (1947-2019)

Richard Williams (1933-2019)

David Winters (1939-2019)

John Witherspoon (1942-2019)

Peter Wollen (1938-2019)

Morgan Woodward (1925-2019)

Max Wright (1943-2019)

Franco Zeffirelli (1923-2019)

129

Congratulations

FDA salutes those whose contributions to film, drama, the creative industries and charity were recognised

in the Queen's Birthday honours of 8 June 2019 and the 2020 New Year honours lists, including:

Tim Angel OBE

Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe mBE

Sir Simon Russell Beale CBE

Alfie Boe OBE

Lee Child CBE

Olivia Colman CBE

Christopher Hampton CBE FrSL

Andy Harries OBE

Sir Elton John Ch CBE

Griff Rhys Jones OBE

Steven Knight CBE

Dame Donna Langley DBE

Sir Steve McQueen CBE

Sir Sam Mendes CBE

Olivia Newton-John OBE AO

Cary Rajinder Sawhney mBE

Nicola Shindler OBE

Joanna Trollope CBE

Sarah Waters OBE

Richard Williams OBE

Acknowledgements

Dave Barrett

James Connor

Kylie Lee

Rob Poole

Joe Bohoslawec

Alex Davies

Tom Linhay

Lord Puttnam of Queensgate CBE

Paul Bowdrey

Madi Davis

Rob Mitchell

Izzy Slipper

Derek Brandon

Kate Hinckley

Dimitrios Mitsinikos

Brittany Taylor-Kirk

Stephen Bristow

Steve Hunt

Geraldine Moloney

Jamie Tonks

Simon Brown

Dave Jarmain

Ciara O'Hara

Carina Volkes

James Butler

Lucy Jones

Grainne Peat

Maryse Willett

130

Index of Tables, Maps and Graphs

Direct Economic Impact Generated by UK Film Distributors 7

Multiplier Effects of UK Film Distribution 7

UK Breakdown of Films by Yearly Ranking 2010-2019 11

10-Year Market Trends 12-13

Top 5 Films 2010 17

Top 5 Films 2011 19

Top 5 Films 2012 21

Top 5 Films 2013 23

Top 5 Films 2014 25

Top 5 Films 2015 27

Top 5 Films 2016 29

Top 5 Films 2017 31

Top 5 Films 2018 33

Release Markets for UK Film Distributors 2017-2019 35

Box Office Range of Cinema Releases - 20 Year Trends 35

Box Office Range of Cinema Releases - Last 3 Years 35

Top 15 British Films in Cinemas 2019 44

Top Comic Book Films in Cinemas 2019 46

Top 15 Animations in Cinemas 2019 48

Top 15 Musicals in Cinemas 2019 50

Top 15 Bollywood Films in Cinemas 2019 52

Top 15 Foreign Language Films in Cinemas 2019 54

Top 15 Documentaries in Cinemas 2019 56

Top 15 Reissues/Restorations in Cinemas 2019 58

Event Cinema Trends 2017-2019 (excluding Secret Cinema) 60

Top 5 Event Cinema 2019 (excluding Secret Cinema) 60

Secret Cinema Trends 2017-2019 62

Digital 3D, Imax and Imax 3-D Box Office 2019 63

Top 15 Horrors in Cinemas 2019 64

Top 100 Films in UK & Ireland Cinemas 2019 66-69

The No.1's of 2019 70

Top 15 Opening Weekends in UK & Ireland Cinemas 2019 71

UK & Ireland Cinemagoing by Certificate 2018-2019 71

Top 50 All-Time Films in UK & Ireland Cinemas 72-73

UK & Ireland Top 5 Films by Month 2019 75

UK & Ireland Cinemagoing by Month 2019 76-77

UK & Ireland Box Office by Day of the Week 2019 78

Top 15 Cinemagoing Weekends 2019 78

Top Cinemagoing Weeks 2019 79

UK & Ireland Cinema Box Office by Nation 2019 81

Cinemagoing Trends by Nation - Last 3 Years 82

No. of Cinemas UK & Ireland 82

No. of Screens UK & Ireland 82

Screen Density by Nation 82

Cinemagoing by Region in England & Wales 2019 83

London Cinema Box Office 2018-2019 83

Scotland Cinema Box Office 2018-2019 84

Cinema Admissions Ireland 2016-2019 84

Cinema Box Office Ireland 2016-2019 84

New Cinemas and Refurbishments 2019 85

UK Population by Age 2019 86

Cinemagoing Frequency by Age Group 2008 and 2018 87

Frequency of Cinemagoing 2019 87

Distributor Performance 2019 89

Film Distributors' Media Advertising Spend 2019 94

Film Distributors' Physical Media Advertising Spend by Month 2019 94

Top 10 Most Searched for Films on Google Worldwide 2019 95

Top 10 Most Searched for Films on Google UK 2019 95

Most Watched Film Trailers on You Tube 2019 96

Yahoo! Movies Search Trends 2019 96

IMDB Top 10 Most Viewed Film Trailers 2019 96

IMDB's Most Anticipated Films of 2020 96

IMDB Top 10 Stars 2019 97

IMDB Top 10 Breakout Stars 2019 97

Most Tweeted Films 2019 97

Proven Pirated Films ("Cams") from UK & Irish Cinemas 103

Worldwide Box Office Summary 2019 104

Top Films Worldwide 2019 105

Top 5 Films Worldwide All-Time 106

Top 10 Films US/Canada 2019 106

5-Year Market Trends US/Canada 107

US & Canada Box Office Trends - Last 5 Years 107

Top International Markets 2019 107

Top 10 Films China 2019 108

China Box Office Trends - Last 5 Years 108

Mexico Box Office Trends - Last 5 Years 109

Top 10 Films Mexico 2019 109

Germany Box Office Trends - Last 5 Years 110

Top 10 Films Germany 2019 110

Top 10 Films Australia 2019 111

Australia Box Office Trends - Last 5 Years 111

UK Entertainment Sales 2019 113

UK's Best-Selling Videos 2019 114

Most Watched TV Shows 2019 116

Top Shows on BBC iPlayer 2019 116

Top 20 Films Shown on UK TV in 2019 116

Top Selling Games 2019 117

Top 20 Albums 2019 118

Top 20 Soundtrack Albums 2019 119

Top 10 Singles 2019 120

Most Searched Songs on Shazam UK 2019 120

Top Selling Vinyl Albums 2019 120

Top 20 Bestselling Books of 2019 121

131

Contact FDA

As a champion of film distribution in the UK and Ireland, FDA’s mission is to give

our member companies and other contacts the support they need to make the most

of their individual business opportunities.

To achieve its aim, FDA manages a set of five core interlocking workstreams:

132

● Content Protection

● Media Services

● Audience Development

● Industry Training

● Policy & Resources

FDA welcomes any approach where UK film distributors’ generic interests are

concerned.

Please email any enquiries, or comments on this publication, to info@fda.uk.net

We aim to respond within three working days.

Film Distributors’ Association ltd.

Registered address:

3 Kingly Court

London

W1B 5PW

UK

tel: +44 (0)20 7437 4383

email: info@fda.uk.net

launchingfilms.com

#launchingfilms

/launchingfilmsuk

FDA

YeArbook

2020

PRINTER TO

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LOGO 2020

OUTER BOX

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Published by & © 2020

Film Distributors’ Association Ltd.

Information correct at time of

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publication may be transmitted,

copied or reproduced in any

form or by any means without

the express prior permission of

FDA or the applicable copyright

owner. With any queries

regarding usage, please

contact FDA in the first instance.

Designed and printed for Film Distributors’ Association by

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FDA Yearbook 2020

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