Mobilization without spectators – Newspaper Kommersant No. 180 (7381) of 09/29/2022

Tickets to the cinema, as well as to concerts, after the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia, they began to buy less frequently. Networks are reporting a 15% to 20% drop in weekend box office revenue compared to the previous week, even though their performance was already critical due to a lack of Hollywood blockbusters. In the future, the key factor for rental will remain the release schedule, and not current events, experts hope.

In the cinema networks surveyed by Kommersant, they report a decrease in sales after the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia. Vladimir Petelin, General Director of the Premier-Zal chain, which manages cinemas in the regions, said that from September 22 to September 25, the box office dropped by 10-15%: “Due to the information agenda and without bright premieres, we risk seeing another drop in 15-20%”. There was no increase in returns, says Vladimir Petelin: “People generally buy tickets within a few hours before the show, and plans rarely change in such a short time.” A representative of the united Cinema Park and Formula Kino cinema chain said that a decline in sales was recorded on Thursday and Friday, September 22 and 23, and on the weekend of September 24 and 25, cinemas worked at the level of the previous week: “On Thursday, a little more, Friday is less decline, on average, yes, about 15%. It is likely that the decline is connected precisely with the news agenda.” At the same time, the network is counting on an increase in demand in early October due to the release of a major Russian release – “The Heart of Parma” (a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Alexei Ivanov, will be released on October 6). Karo declined to comment. Against the backdrop of news about the mobilization, sales also fell in other segments of the entertainment market: ticket services reported a drop in sales by 30–40% (see Kommersant on September 23).

At the same time, according to the Unified Automated Information System (UAIS) of the Cinema Fund, there was no anti-record for attendance last weekend: 625 thousand spectators came to cinemas against 661 thousand last weekend, but in early August indicators were recorded, for example , in 453.8 thousand viewers. “After a 60–80% drop in our industry continued for several months, the decline of the last weekend did not look noticeable,” notes Vladimir Petelin.

Hollywood majors – Universal, Warner Bros., Disney, Sony and Paramount – have stopped the distribution of films in Russia since March due to hostilities in Ukraine, all these months the decline in revenue and cinema attendance has been exacerbated. As Kommersant wrote on September 14, networks freeze the work of some of the halls, some are closed. According to the Association of Cinema Owners (AVK) and Comscore, since February 125 cinemas in the Russian Federation have stopped working, their total number has decreased by 6%, until 1994.

In general, September was stable for Russian film distribution: all four weekends in terms of total revenue fell within the interval of less than 20 million rubles, another thing is that this stability is observed within 35–45% of the box office in September of previous years, says an analyst at Film Business Today Stanislav Demidenko. The next weekend will almost certainly turn out to be somewhat weaker, but the key factor will still be the situation in the film distribution, and not the news, the expert believes: “There are simply no premieres that can interest the mass audience.”

The main domestic premieres of September “Calendar May (Y)” and “Little Red Riding Hood” go even better than expected, but without serious advertising support it was difficult to achieve much, says Stanislav Demidenko: “It is for this reason that the market is very hopeful for the film” Heart of Parma “. Its advertising campaign started in the summer, television commercials have been running for more than a month. There hasn’t been anything like it since the departure of studio Hollywood cinema in early March.”

Valeria Lebedeva