German Box Office Tops $1.1 billion In 2011

BERLIN– It looks as if German distributors will have a happy holidays, as preliminary box office figures point to an increase in revenue for the year, with a total take of more than $1.1 billion.

Numbers from Rentrak from Dec. 30, 2010 through Dec. 18 2011 put German box office revenue at $1.14 billion (€871.7 million), suggesting the year will end 3-3.5 per cent up on 2010. Admissions figures were flat at around 115 million but higher priced 3-D tickets more than made up the difference.

Warner Bros. again led the distributors’ pack, thanks to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, which was the number one film in the territory, with a $74 million take. Warner also had the number one German film this year, Til Schweiger’s rom-com Kokowaah, which closed out at nearly $40 million.

Overall, German productions, particularly English-language co-productions such as The Three Musketeers, Roman Polanski’s Carnage and A Dangerous Method from director David Cronenberg, strengthened their position in the local market, accounting for 20.1 per cent of tickets sold and 18.4 per cent of the total box office.

Munich’s Concorde Film was, for the second year running, the top indie distributor in Germany, thanks to The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, which earned nearly $30 million at the German till.