Irish no longer tops as love affair with cinema wanes
In 2008, Ireland had the second highest number of people flocking cinemas in the world with Iceland the holder of the title of the most avid movie-goers in the planet.
However, in a survey carried out by cinema giants HSI Screen Digest, Ireland has now dropped to seventh position in the table of the world’s keenest movie-goers per head of population.
Ireland has been outstripped by South Korea, Singapore, USA, Australia, and Hong Kong.
While the average Irish person went to the cinema more than four times a year in 2008, this has now dropped to just over three times per head of population.
So far in 2013, Iron Man III has been the biggest film of the year despite having to yet finish its run at the Irish box office.
Les Misérables is in second place with the animated Croods in third place.
With over €108m taken at the box office in 2012, the quintessentially British hero, James Bond, was the biggest hit with Irish audiences pulling in almost €6m at the box office.
Money-spinning fran-chises and comic superheroes shone the brightest at Irish cinema last year, with The Dark Knight coming second to Skyfall in the top 10 films of 2012.
Figures from Carlton Screen Advertising show the biggest films of last year all came from the fantasy, action, and animated genres with not a single drama or homegrown movie making a big impact this year.
Avengers Assemble, which has become one of the biggest films of all time, came in third place with the hilarious, crass Ted coming in fourth place.
Ireland is following the worldwide trends at the cinema but while Skyfall was the Irish number one, Avengers came out on top worldwide at the box office.
Franchises are proving to be the big money-spinners on the big screen with Ice Age, Twilight, The Hobbit, and Taken 2 all in Ireland’s top 10 this year.
While comedies like Bridesmaids and The Guard scored with Irish audiences in 2011, the only comedy to be a big hit with Irish audiences was Ted, which starred a hard-drinking, drug-taking, girl-obsessed teddy bear
Figures from cinema analysts HSI Screen Digest also show the number of tickets sold at the Irish box office has dropped by almost 3m since 2008, when 18.2m tickets were sold compared to 15.4m tickets last year.
Meanwhile, the figures also reveal that box office revenue went from a high of €131m in 2009 to €108m last year.
