While the Cannes Film Festival opens, the observation is final: American blockbusters are massively attracting spectators, and especially young people, while most art and test films have trouble surviving , disturbing the balance of the whole sector.
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Passenger disenchantment or more final break with the public? Already worrying before the Pandemic of COVVI-19, the situation of the indoor author films enters an acute phase, bitter for directors, not very understandable for room operators, disappointing for producers and, above all, critic for distributors for distributors independent.
While the Cannes festival opens, Tuesday, May 17, the observation is clear: since January, the number of new films each week on the poster – between thirteen and sixteen – has hardly dropped since the Beginning of the health crisis, while the audience of dark rooms has become scarce. The attendance fell 34.2 %to 50.7 million spectators, during the first four months of 2022 compared to the same period of 2019, according to the National Center for Cinema and the Animated Image (CNC) . Even if, in April, the decline was reduced, at – 23 %.
The gap is widening between American -style films and blockbusters. The latter, sometimes expected for two years, have almost packed, as evidenced by Spider-Man’s successes: No Way Home, by Jon Watts (7.3 million admissions in France), from The Batman, from Matt Reeves (more than 3 million), or Uncharted, Ruben Fleischer (2.5 million). In this yardstick, only two Hollywood stars disappointed audience: Steven Spielberg, with his West Side Story remake, and Ridley Scott, with the last duel.
The big American machines also brought the young audience in theaters, which some said, however, forever for the benefit of streaming platforms, like Netflix. Thanks to the culture pass, adolescents answered the call and went to see massively superhero films, like Doctor Strange in the MultiVerveus of Madness, of Sam Raimi.
painful
These are their elders, long the most assiduous and the most cinephile, who disappear from cinematographic radars after two years of health slump. The famous 50 years and over, who have become chilly, have not yet returned to the room, which disturbs the balance of the entire sector. Not to mention that with the pandemic, many subscribers to unlimited cards have not renewed them. However, these customers, often overconsumption of the seventh art, did not hesitate to also discover demanding films. Those who, precisely, suffer today.
Is it a structural or cyclical crisis? “Even sure values are no longer so sure: the films that federate two years ago 500,000 indoor admissions only make half of it,” observes François Aymé, president of the French Association of Cinemas of Art and test, which represents 1,200 establishments. At the head of the distribution company The Jokers, Manuel Chiche is even more pessimistic: “We don’t even talk about tension anymore, it’s the slaughterhouse” for certain films. “If I am asked what has worked well for a year, I have to answer” none “, and it may be the same until the end of the year,” he admits
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