Domestic audience and box office are growing primarily due to major films / Disney

At the last government council on cinema, officials had something to brag about: in 2017, the audience for Russian films in cinemas grew by 57% at once, and over the past two years, it has increased by 73.3%. At the same time, the number of viewers of foreign films remained practically at the same level (+1.2%), having increased by 11.3% over two years. This is data from the state Cinema Fund as of December 26. And although the audience as a whole still prefers to watch Hollywood products, every fourth Russian viewer now chooses Russian cinema. The magazine "Bulletin of Film Distributors" has similar data: Russian cinema has already collected 12.6 billion rubles this year, or 23.8% of the national box office, it was watched by 52.7 million viewers, or every fourth cinema visitor (data as of December 24).

It is clear why officials are happy with such figures: the overwhelming majority of domestic films that are released in cinemas in one form or another are financed by the state. These are either subsidies from the Ministry of Culture or money from the Cinema Fund. The latter finances both the production of films and their distribution. The fund gives part of the money free of charge, and part with a return. In total, it spent 4.6 billion rubles on supporting films this year, and 4.2 billion rubles in 2016.

Two notable exceptions to this rule in 2017 were Andrey Zvyagintsev's film "Loveless" and the thriller "Gogol. The Beginning", which were released without state support. "Gogol" is a series, the first two episodes of which were already released on the big screen by TV-3 before the premiere on air. As a result, the thriller collected 444.5 million rubles, much more than analysts and the producers themselves predicted.

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The domestic audience and box office are growing primarily due to the largest films. In 2015, not a single Russian film grossed 1 billion rubles at the box office, in 2016, the film "Viking" grossed more than a billion. This year, there have already been two billion-grossing films - "Attraction" by Fyodor Bondarchuk (1.1 billion rubles) and the fairy tale "The Last Knight" (1.7 billion rubles). This fairy tale from the company Yellow, Black & White and Disney became not only the highest-grossing film of the year, but also broke the absolute box office record for a Russian film, overtaking "Stalingrad" in terms of collections. Most likely, at the end of December, the third billion-grossing film will appear in the year's portfolio: on December 28, one of the most anticipated films of the year will begin to be released - "Moving Up" from the studio "Trite" by Nikita Mikhalkov.

The average box office of the 10 largest domestic films has more than doubled since 2015 – from 408 million to 1 billion rubles, Vedomosti calculated based on data from the Film Distributor’s Bulletin magazine. But only 12% of Russian films make their money at the box office, the Cinema Fund calculated. That is, the state continues to sponsor the domestic film industry.

For officials, the 25% of the national cinema audience that Russian films received this year is a cherished figure. The last time every fourth viewer chose domestic cinema was almost 10 years ago – in 2008. Then the Russian share fell sharply, and producers and officials were unable to cross the 20% threshold. Now, Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky says that domestic cinema is quite capable of receiving a third of viewers in the near future.

Producers, analysts and cinema employees interviewed by Vedomosti explain the growing popularity of Russian films with viewers primarily by the growth in the quality of domestic cinema. If American films have been working without surprises for the last year and a half and sometimes even below market expectations, then domestic cinema has often exceeded these expectations, says Olga Zinyakova, CEO of the Karo chain: "Russian producers now know what audience they are filming for, the level of marketing has increased significantly - promotion of films begins not on the day of the premiere, as before, but several months in advance." Alexander Rodnyansky, producer of Loveless and Stalingrad, also believes that Russian producers have restored relations with the audience, and have learned to work in a variety of genres and formats: "And the billions of rubles that the state spends on supporting the industry equalize the chances of domestic films in competition with Hollywood studios in our own market."

Top 10 Highest Grossing Movies of the Year 1 / 10

The film " Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead Men Tell No Tales" was released in late May and collected 2.3 billion rubles at the box office in Russia and the CIS (excluding Ukraine). Today, the adventures from the Disney film studio are the leader in box office receipts for 2017, the film was watched by 9 million viewers / Walt Disney Pictures

Russian cinema has brought back the audience