Dutch cinemas have virtually recovered from the corona pandemic in 2023. Nearly 32 million tickets were sold, an increase of 27 percent; the receipts rose to 338 million euros, 31 percent more.
This is evident from the annual figures presented today by the associations of cinema owners (NVBF) and film distributors (FND) in Pathé Tuschinski. A strong recovery after the post-covid disaster year of 2022, which still had a lockdown and restrictions due to the arrival of the Omikron variant, was to be expected. Although NVBF chairman Boris van der Ham emphasizes that the recovery is not yet complete: in the years 2017-2019, cinema visits were on average 14 percent higher. “But the upward direction is there and we are happy with that. Dutch people now go to the cinema on average 1.8 times a year. The challenge is that they not only visit events such as Barbenheimer, but also the slightly smaller titles.”
In 2023, 502 cinema films were released, almost ten per week. The feminist comedy Barbie had the most success with more than 1.8 million tickets sold, followed by the atomic epic Oppenheimer with almost 1.7 million, just slightly more than animated films The Super Mario Bros. Movie. It was already released in December 2022 Avatar: The Way of Water sold a total of almost 2.2 million tickets, of which 1.3 million in 2023. Musical Wonka attracted more than 600,000 viewers last December. Superheroes, on the other hand, failed: Guardians of the Galaxy 3 finished in 12th place, the groundbreaking superhero animation from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse at 17. All other Marvel and DC titles were left out.
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Dutch comedies
The market share of Dutch films fell this year from 16 to 14 percent, with multicultural comedies The Tattas and The Tattas 2 as the biggest movers. There was also success for traditional Sinterklaas films and holiday comedies such as All Inclusive and The Bellinga's: Holiday on Stilts. Boris van der Ham: “Dutch comedies are doing remarkably well, also look at Jandino Asporaat's Bon Bini films. They have a specific tone and harsh humor that have great appeal to the Dutch audience.”
Van der Ham hopes that the cinema sector will fully recover by 2024, also given the pressure of inflation and rising heating costs. “The question is also how the postponement of American titles due to the strikes in Hollywood will work out. In that respect, it will be quite an exciting year.”
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