European cinema is regaining ground against American films. According to the latest data published by the European Audiovisual Observatory, in 2017 total ticket sales sold for US films fell, giving them a market share of 66.2 percent, down from 67.5 percent the year before. By contrast, ticket sales for European films slightly increased in 2017, bringing up their market share from 26.3 percent to 27.5 percent, the second highest level in the last five years. That’s despite a slight fall in the number of feature films produced in 2017, at 1,676, which is 3.7 percent less than in 2016 (when 1,741 films were produced), reversing a trend of gentle growth over the past few years.

Box office takings remained steady, according to the provisional data. In 2017, they came to more than €7 billion across the EU (€7.02 billion, to be exact), the third largest amount ever, but still a small decline of 0.3 percent on the year before. The average ticket price was €7.10, and we see significant national differences within the EU.

Revenue increase in 19 countries and fell in 6. From a geographical perspective, growth was particularly strong in central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Slovakia (+€5.5 million, +18.9 percent), Lithuania (+€2.7 million, +15.2 percent), Poland (+€23.9 million, + 10.8 percent) and Romania (+€5.3 million, +10.3 percent). Of the five biggest markets in the EU, there was a moderate increase in Germany (+€33.1 million, +3.2 percent) and the UK (+€57.5 million, +4.1 percent), while revenue was relatively stable in France and Spain. Meanwhile, Italy saw a significant fall (-€82.6 million, -11.9 percent), driven by a considerable decline in ticket sales, principally for nationally-made films.  

As for the origin of the most successful films, it is clear that American films dominate in the most watched films of 2016 to 2017, confirming a general trend over the past few years, according to data previously published by EDJNet along with other figures relating to film-industry trends in Europe from 1996 to 2016.

The first film of European origin (a British film, to be precise) that appeared in the top ten most watched films is Dunkirk, a war film inspired by the Second World War, which sold 17.2 million tickets. If we exclude European films funded by US investment, no European title sold more than 10 million tickets in the EU. The European film with the best results is the British family comedy Paddington 2, which generated 9.1 million ticket sales.