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London, 26 July 2005
First Six Months 2005 UK Audiences Turn to the Big Screen for Big Laughs as UK Distributors Increase Film Advertising Spend by 16%

UK cinemagoers spent almost £400 million on admission tickets in the six months, January–June 2005.

The top ten films for January–June 2005 (see table below) include substantially more comedies than any other genre. Meet the Fockers, released in the UK on 28 January, went on to become the world’s biggest grossing live-action comedy film of all time. Its UK box-office take of £28.7m is nearly double that of the number one comedy in the whole of 2004, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

While humour has led the way, audiences have also been attracted by a taste of other cultures. Five foreign language releases of 2005, The Downfall (from Germany), Waqt (India), A Very Long Engagement (France), Kung Fu Hustle (China) and Bombón–El Perro (Argentina), have achieved a combined total of one million cinema admissions in the UK. The Downfall has become the highest-grossing German film ever with UK audiences. Films from 28 countries – from Chile to South Korea – in addition to the UK and the US had a UK cinema release during the first six months of 2005.

An eclectic selection of home-grown drama, comedy and animation has also found success. British hits of the first half of 2005 include Valiant, The Magic Roundabout, Vera Drake, Closer and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

UK film distributors invested £79.8m on media advertising during January–June 2005. This represents an increase of 16% over their advertising spend in the same period of 2004 (£68.9m). Three-quarters of the 2005 spend to date was on television spots (£33.5m) and outdoor posters (£26.5m), while radio ads accounted for a further £5m and newspapers and magazines took £14.8m.

In addition, during January–June 2005, distributors launched 25 films with gala premieres in London’s West End to help engage audiences’ attention.

The UK’s single busiest cinema-going week in the first half of 2005 was 19–25 May, when approximately four million people went to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the spectacular climax to the hugely popular saga, in its opening seven days. The busiest overall month so far was February, which had a half-term holiday as well as a lift from the high-profile Oscar ® and BAFTA awards.

The top ten films for January–June 2005, accounting for approximately 32 million UK cinema admissions, are stated below. Six of the ten were classified 12A, entitling accompanied children under 12 to see them, on their UK release.

	Top ten films in UK cinemas January–June 2005	Starring	UK box-office 1 Jan–30 June 2005
1	Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (12A) UK release 19 May	Ewan McGregor, Haydn Christiansen, Natalie Portman	£38.1m (still on release)
2	Meet the Fockers (12A) UK release 28 January	Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman	£28.7m
3	Hitch (12A) UK-wide release 11 March	Will Smith, Eva Mendes, Kevin James	£17.4m
4	Ocean’s Twelve (12A) UK release 4 February	George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta Jones	£12.4m
5	Robots (U) UK release 18 March	Ewan McGregor, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent (voice cast)	£12.3m
6	Batman Begins (12A) UK release 16 June	Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine	£10.8m (still on release)
7	Mr & Mrs Smith (15) UK release 10 June	Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Adam Brody	£10.8m (still on release)
8	The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (PG) UK release 29 April	Martin Freeman, Mos Def, Warwick Davis	£10.6m
9	Closer (15) UK release 14 January	Clive Owen, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman	£8.4m
10	The Aviator (12A) UK-wide release: 7 January	Leonardo Di Caprio, Cate Blanchett, Alan Alda	£8.3m

All these top films plus many others in 2005 have been released in accessible versions with digital subtitles and audio description, a fast-growing distribution trend in recent years.

Mark Batey , Chief Executive of Film Distributors’ Association (FDA), the trade body for UK theatrical film distributors, said:

“Variety is the spice of the cinema. The wider the choice of quality films, whatever their provenance, the greater the audiences are likely to be. There have been a number of highlights in 2005 already, but we firmly believe the best is yet to come. With magical big screen entertainment like King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia and the fourth Harry Potter adventure coming soon, we are looking forward to another fantastic year.”

Contact for further information

Mark Batey , Chief Executive
Film Distributors’ Association Ltd.
22 Golden Square, London W1F 9JW
Telephone 020 7437 4383
Email mbatey@fda.uk.net
www.launchingfilms.com

Notes to editors

• Established 90 years ago in 1915, FDA is the trade association representing UK theatrical film distributors, the companies that release films and promote them to audiences. FDA members’ releases account for 97% of UK cinema admissions.
• FDA delivers a range of activities and services to its member companies and the film industry – further details are at www.launchingfilms.com. Three times a year, FDA arranges Cinema Days trade events comprising preview screenings and press conferences for UK regional film journalists. The 50 th Cinema Days takes place in October 2005 – programme details
  are at www.cinemadays.com.
• FDA publishes a Yearbook every spring, containing a wealth of facts, figures and comment on the previous year’s cinemagoing patterns and the market impact of film distributors’ investment.
  Free copies are available on request from the FDA office.
• Across the UK, two-thirds of cinemagoing takes place over the weekend, Friday–Sunday. On average, more than one million cinema tickets are bought every Saturday and another million
  every Sunday.