Cinema Sees Strongest March In Three Years

UK cinema admissions in March reached 12.3 million, up 14.5% year on year, making March the busiest in the past three years.

The latest results from the Cinema Advertising Association (CAA) reveal an average of 2.78 million admissions a week in March, with romantic comedy Hitch the top choice for cinemagoers. The movie took a total of £12.9 million over the month, while animated children’s adventure Robots grossed £7.4 million.

Third position went to the film realisation of the Hellblazer comics’ Constantine, with the movie taking £5 million. More high-budget action followed in fourth place, with Bruce Willis’ Hostage taking £3.2 million and rounding off the top five was children’s animated pigeon flick, Valiant.

Advertising expenditure in cinema was up 4.9% year on year during March, with the top three advertisers in terms of spend continuing to be big-name brands. Unilever led the way with a cinema adspend of £2.3 million, followed by Orange with £1.2 million and Volkswagen with £926,000.

April will see a series of big budget sequels hitting the silver screen, including XXX 2: Next Level, Be Cool and The Ring Two. Hype is also building ahead of the third Star Wars film’s release in May, as well as Ridley Scott’s next epic picture, Kingdom of Heaven.

The latest results continue cinema’s strong growth trend, leading on from February which enjoyed weekly admissions averaging 3.70 million, an 11% increase year on year (see Cinema Admissions Up By 11% In February).

Cinema admission figures back to January 1984 can be found in MediaTel.co.uk’s Cinema database.

CAA: 020 7534 6363