The end of December is a good time to look in the rear view mirror. In the cultural sector, the highlight of 2022 remains the drop in cinema attendance, as much in Paris as in Beijing, Los Angeles or Bombay. A phenomenon due to competition from streaming platforms and the two years of the pandemic, but could it dissipate or is it destined to continue?
A black September! This is how professionals of the French 7th art qualify the return to cinemas in 2022: 7.38 million admissions, unheard of since the 1980s. So much so that part of the profession, worried about the future of cinema which is based on a financing system unique in the world, had called Thursday, October 6 to ” States General “.
the distributor Etienne Ollagnier painted the portrait of a multifaceted crisis: There is obviously the economic crisis linked to Covid: the closing of cinemas for three hundred days, almost a year, between 2020 and 2021; the fact also that the rooms were considered non-essential businesses, subject to restrictions, gauges, masks, pass sanitary. There is also a more structural crisis : the aging of audiences, competition from platforms which was already in its infancy, but intensified during the closing of cinemas. But also with regard to the independent cinema that we represent, numerous attacks on diversity, a crisis also in received ideas (on the price of tickets or the image of French films). All of this combined is a multi-layered crisis, a layer cake of crises. »
► Also to listen: Debate of the day – Is French cinema in danger?
This multifactorial crisis does not only worry the French. Even the Canadian James Cameron, yet world box office record holder with titanic then Avatarworried about the disaffection of the rooms at the time of the promotion ofAvatar, the way of the waterthe continuation of his immense success: “ I am very worried. Maybe I’m a dinosaur, and people don’t need to see a movie in theaters as much as I do. But all is not lost. And maybe a movie like Avatar can remind audiences of what a cinematic experience can be. That’s why we release it in different formats. But I can’t guarantee you that it will work. We’ll see (he adds in French). »
Avatar, chronicle of an announced success?
And we have already seen. In fifteen days, James Cameron’s film has already exceeded 5 million spectators in France, and brought in nearly 300 million dollars at the American box office. The length of the film (3h12) and the additional cost linked to 3D did not discourage the spectators. Perhaps, on the contrary, they were waiting for this event film to return to theaters, and even rather twice than once. In France, Avatar, the way of the water could exceed the card of the year, Top Gun Maverick (the sequel to the success with Tom Cruise).
What ultimately make operators optimistic. Like Marc-Olivier Sebbag, the general delegate of the National Federation of French Cinemas, which notes the relative good performance over the year of French films, whose market share approaches 40%, at the same level as American films. ” We will end the year 2022 with a total of 150 million spectators, much more than in 2020 (65 million) and 2021 (95 million). Admittedly, the figures for the first half of 2022 were bad, but the sanitary conditions were still difficult. Since October, we have been in a good dynamic. Only with the cinema party, with a film like Top Gun Maverickwith the arrival of a whole series of successful French films such as November, simone Where The Innocent that we see the return of the spectators. And finally, we arrive with the immense success from Avatar. »
” We have this series of good news which makes us look forward to the year 2023 with serenity. Asterix and Obelix, the middle empire Where The three Musketeers. Every week, you will have films that will interest each other “, prophesies with optimism Marc-Olivier Sebbag.
► Read also : Post-Covid cinema
Relative optimism
Not all French cinema professionals share this enthusiasm. Even if the improvement is confirmed, no French film should appear on the podium of the ten biggest successes of the year 2022. Above all, whether they are producers, authors, directors or distributors, the French artisans of the 7th art worry about the possibilities of financing future auteur films, or discoveries.
Nicolas Pariser, whose last film The green scent (a spy comedy) is currently in theaters, summarizes the data of the equation thus: On the one hand, there are exhibitors who want to transform cinema into an expensive, ultra-spectacular experience that would be a mixture of the Foire du Trône and the Paris Opera, with seats at 25 euros and huge films with seats that move. in all directions. And then on the other platforms that want people to stay at home as much as possible. These major industrial movements will have an impact on the films produced in the coming years because they are still the ones who finance them. I hope that the spectator will have his word to say, and that this word is that he wants to see a great diversity of films. »
The fear is indeed that more fragile French films, or films by unknown authors, will not be able to find funding and that an entire vulnerable ecosystem will thus be weakened, cinema being both an art and an industry.