UK box office suffers biggest fall for 20 years

Posted on January 7, 2014

The UK’s box office fell by the largest figure in more than 20 years in 2013, according to a new report.

The 1% drop saw the total haul made by films in UK cinemas hit £1.17bn. It was the first fall in a decade in real terms in the world’s fourth largest box office, according to the report from tracker Rentrak.

Experts blamed the drop on the lack of a major “big hitter” such as 2012’s Skyfall, the highest-grossing film of all time in the UK, which took more than £100m. This year’s biggest movies were animated sequel Despicable Me 2, which took £47.2m, Les Miserables (£40.84) and Iron Man 3 (£37.17m). Fantasy sequel The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (£34m) and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (£32.5m) rounded out the top five.

“2012 was particularly strong, with three films grossing over £50m — none achieved this milestone in 2013,” Rentrak’s Lucy Jones told Variety. “We also had the biggest film of all time in 2012, Skyfall, grossing over £100m. In comparison, 2013′s top release was Despicable Me 2 on £47m. This left a big gap to be filled in the latter part of the year, and we didn’t quite make it.”

The UK box office had previously risen every year since Rentrak first began tracking it in 1991. Hence the superficially meagre 1% drop still amounts to the biggest fall in two decades.

Referenced from theguardian.com