After Pandemic Box Office Slump, Europe Expects Strong Comeback With ‘Barbie,’ ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Indiana Jones’

The walls of Barcelonas international convention center might soon rattle once the 4,000 European exhibitors, suppliers and service providers in town for the CineEurope trade show breathe out a collective sigh of relief. At the root of such succor are Europes more than encouraging box-office admissions, which saw a marked uptick in late 2022 and have continued to rise into the new year.

I think this edition will be very much about celebrating because 2022 was a much better year than 2021, says Laura Houlgatte, CEO of the Intl. Union of Cinemas (UNIC), which tends to the needs of cinema trade associations and exhibitors across the old continent. [Whats more] the numbers for the first quarter of 2023 have left everyone in a very good mood.

Organized by the Film Expo Group, and running from June 19 22, the Barcelona-based trade show will bring together operators and exhibitors from a diverse set of territories all lifted by the same rising tide. Whereas early 2023 admissions in Germany, Norway and Finland have come within percentage points of equivalent pre-pandemic figures, receipts in France, Austria and the Netherlands have all bested those 2017-2019 numbers by at least 2%.

While the robust performances of blockbusters like Avatar: The Way of Water and The Super Mario Bros. Movie certainly played a role not least by pushing analysts from Gower Street to amend their 2023 global box office forecast by 10% this past April Houlgatte also credits strong domestic slates in France, Germany and Finland as key drivers. It is imperative to have a constant flow of content coming into our cinemas, she adds. We must make sure to avoid any empty months.

Summer slate presentations from Studiocanal, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Universal, Paramount and Disney will hopefully see to that, alongside a handful of feature screenings still to be confirmed. Houlgatte tells Variety that from those upcoming slates, Universals Oppenheimer, Disneys Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and Paramounts Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One have all got UNIC members buzzing, while another summer title has operators teetering on edge.

Everyone is extremely excited about Barbie, she says. Theres huge hype.

With pandemic shutdowns fading into the rear-view mirror, with international travel restrictions lifted, and with local exhibitors no longer qualifying their optimism as cautious, this years CineEurope promises both significantly higher attendance than in previous editions and a more far-reaching view.

Conferences and case studies will focus on national Cinema Days and pricing mechanisms as ways to eventize new releases and lure audiences back, while another panel will consider the new technologies including AI as possible tools to improve user experience and marketing.

Moreover, questions of sustainability will prove especially pertinent, as exhibitors consider both the wider environmental impact of concession-driven businesses that trade in so much disposable material alongside the larger regulatory ramifications of next years European parliamentary elections.

The industry needs to address these concerns from a wider operational perspective, Houlgatte explains. This is prompted by a number of national laws that are coming into force, which ask all businesses to be more sustainable. [And] we need to address those policy issues that could potentially have an impact on the way cinemas operate.

I wish we could leave the word recovery behind us, and I hope that we will by next year, Houlgatte continues. But weve been building on and getting better in terms of admissions and in terms of content flow [and now] its time to look forward, to ask how best to adapt, invest and innovate so to provided cinemagoers with the best experience possible?