Cinema Industry Round-Up 1997
1997 proved to be successful for the cinema industry with admissions rising 12.5% on 1996. The release of major films including Stars Wars, Jurassic Park – The Lost World and The Full Monty contributed strongly to this.
January and February were down on 1996 but March showed an increase of 7.3% up to 11,934,000. This was mainly due to George Lucas’s relaunched and revamped edition of Star Wars, which grossed £3.8m in it’s opening weekend, amounting to around 0.76 million people watching the film. High admissions for Star Wars rolled over into April with it’s sequel Empire Strikes Back also contributed, along with Space Jam. This makes The English Patient and Romeo & Juliet the five top grossing films for April.
1997 Total Monthly Cinema Admissions Comparisons
| Months | 1996 | 1997 | % Change |
| January | 12,519,000 | 11,809,000 | -5.7 |
| February | 12,882,000 | 10,122,000 | -21.4 |
| March | 11,124,000 | 11,934,000 | 7.3 |
| April | 11,360,000 | 11,439,000 | 0.7 |
| May | 7,589,000 | 9,755,000 | 28.5 |
| June | 6,059,000 | 8,399,000 | 38.6 |
| July | 10,143,000 | 11,391,000 | 12.3 |
| August | 16,331,000 | 17,208,000 | 5.4 |
| September | 7,926,000 | 11,811,000 | 49.0 |
| October | 10,222,000 | 13,225,000 | 29.4 |
| November | 7,443,000 | 9,698,000 | 30.3 |
| December | 9,882,000 | 12,131,000 | 22.8 |
| Total | 123,480,000 | 138,922,000 | 12.5 |
The Lost World, the sequel to Jurassic Park, grossed £5.66 million in it’s opening weekend in July, ensuring that it kept up the mammoth admissions for the dinosaur saga.
October Admissions showed a 29.4% increase year on year with an average of 2.99 million admissions per week – The Full Monty accounted for 36% of the month’s admissions alone. This makes it the highest grossing British film of all time.
The CAA published the first ever-accurate quarterly cinema figures in October for the period July-September 1997. The data was compiled from 2,356 cinema screens and the results showed that Carlton Screen Advertising had the majority of admissions with a 69.4% share and Pearl & Dean holding the remaining 30.6%.
National Cinema Day was held on Sunday 15th June, giving people the chance to see any film for £1.00. 1.4 Million people turned up to view films which included Fifth Element, Absolute Power and Con Air.
Carlton Communications acquired Cinema Media in July 1996 and in March this year it was renamed Carlton Screen Advertising after it was decided that it would benefit more under the Carlton brand name. Carlton Communications also acquired Rank Film Distributors Ltd, the UK’s largest film distributor for £65 million. This gives Carlton access to the Rank library, which contains over sixty years of cinema history including many classics.
United Cinemas International renewed a new five year contract with Carlton Screen Advertising who will now continue to provide its promotions and marketing services. This ensures CSA’s majority share of UK admissions.
In June, Pearl & Dean beat Carlton Screen Advertising to the sales contract for Showcase Cinemas. The deal included 197 screens and boosted Pearl & Dean’s share of this market to over 30%.
The Cinema Advertising Association meanwhile announced ‘wide ranging’ changes to it’s annual CAVIAR (Cinema And Video Industry Audience Research) survey which will include talking to younger audiences and analysing spending habits. 3,000 people across Britain will take part in the 15th CAVIAR survey, which is due to be published in February 1998.
The Cinema database can be accessed by selecting “Cinema” from the drop-down box at the top of this page.