French films at the international box office: August 2021

Kaamelott – Premier volet garnered the highest attendance figures in August 2021, while three other titles attracted more than 100,000 spectators outside France.

At the beginning of August, more countries enforced the access to cinemas with an vaccine/immunity certificate rule. For example, Italy, Cyprus, and Greece (apart from open-air sessions), Estonia (for events with more than 1,000 participants), Luxembourg, and Romania have joined the group of markets where this measure is already in force, such as Denmark, France,  Hungary, and Israel. Overall, cinema attendance remains at a low level and admissions tend to be concentrated around three to five films, mainly Hollywood blockbusters or local productions. Australia and New Zealand, which offered great careers to French productions this year, have been confronted with a resurgence of the pandemic. New lockdowns and stricter measures, which we had hoped to have left behind, are once again the order of the day: a good number of Australian and New Zealand cinemas have been forced to temporarily cease their activities. The industry is looking to the fall, hoping that a genuine recovery will take place and that the scenario of 2020, when long months of inactivity in cinemas were beginning to loom, will be nothing but a bad memory.

French cinema continues undaunted and in August marked its second richest month in admissions (1.65 million) of 2021, behind June (2.14). The million spectator threshold was easily crossed for the third time and, despite an equivalent volume of titles released, admissions rose by 41% and the number of new releases by 33% compared to July 2021. Among the ten most popular French-majority productions during the month of August, which reflect the diversity of French titles and their contribution to the international scene, more than half were films recently released in France: the Cannes-selected Annette and Titane, animation feature Tour du monde en 80 jours, horror The Deep House, and unmissable comedy represented by the latest OSS 117: From Africa With Love, Mystery in Saint-Tropez, and The Speech. Their performances allowed French-majority productions to dominate minority productions (55% compared to 45%), whereas the latter were leaders during the first half of the year. This month, The Father‘s total international admissions (excluding the United Kingdom) reached 3.31 million and those of Bigfoot Family (excluding Belgium) 2.11 million. In addition, three out of four admissions were generated by films in the French language.

The monthly top 3 was entirely composed of titles having garnered more than 100,000 moviegoers, and this for the first time this year! Majority-French productions are gradually regaining their audiences: five attracted more than 10,000 spectators in June, nineteen in July and seventeen in August. This significant drop should not be a cause for concern, as the analysis of additional levels shows hope. This month, the symbolic threshold of 100,000 admissions was crossed by three films (compared to one in July), that of 50,000 by one (compared to zero) and that of 20,000 by eight (compared to seven).

The Deep House

The division of admissions between film genres followed the pattern of the previous month. Dramas consolidated their leadership, but their share was reduced to 37% of total admissions, which kept them slightly out in front of comedies (33%). These two genres represent by themselves alone three admissions out of four of French films abroad. Animation moved up again to third place, with a 26% share despite there being five times less animation films on offer than dramas and comedies. With the exception of fantasy/horror/science fiction, no other genre contributed more than 1% to the monthly admissions.

Kaamelott – Premier volet climbed to the top of the ranks for the second month in a row!   Alexandre Astier‘s film seems to have no rivals and pursued its fine career on three French-speaking markets, where it broke new records: €1 million in box office revenues and 118,000 admissions in Belgium, CA$ 0.69 million and 71,000 tickets sold in Quebec, and €0.8 million and  54,000 admissions in Switzerland. These kinds of figures have not been recorded in these three countries since the hit of Serial Bad Weddings 2 in 2019. Another comedy saga, OSS 117: From Africa With Love made its foreign debut in these same three markets and managed to carve out a place for itself despite the current difficulties and competition from Kaamelott. 64,000 Belgian, 34,000 Quebec, and 33,000 Swiss moviegoers didn’t miss their date with the French spy. Large release runs exceeding 100 cinemas welcomed Annette, the first majority-French production to attract more 40,000 Russian and more than 30,000 Polish moviegoers since the beginning of the year, without forgetting the 35,000 Spanish and 21,000 British spectators. We’ve had to wait four years (since The Jungle Bunch (The Movie)) to witness the return in force of French animation in the UK and Ireland, thanks to the Tour du monde en 80 jours which allowed the genre to get some wind back in its sails (£316,000, being nearly 50,000 spectactors). Summer of 85 attracted 13,000 Japanese, while The Deep House haunted 24,000 Italians. French cinema has made it into the local top 10 on several occasions and in different markets (three times in Greece and twice in Italy and Portugal).

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This report is based on results recorded on September 16, 2021. Since our statistics for film releases are continuously updated, the graphics generated automatically on our website will differ from the chart featured in this article.