Cinema 2016: The 10 facts you need to know

2016 Summary

2016 was a great year in cinema with admissions up approximately 2% year on year. This defied expectations following the impressive growth of 2015.

So why did 2016 perform so well?

Comic Book films dominated the film slate in 2016, starting with Deadpool back in February all the way to Suicide Squad in August. It was also a huge year for family films with The Jungle Book, Finding Dory and The Secret Life of Pets all making the top 10. The Jungle Book delivered almost twice as many admissions as predicted.

Bridget Jones was last on the cinema screen 12 years ago so there was no guarantee Bridget Jones’ Baby would be a hit with a 2016 audience. However, it did resonate and went on to be the one of the biggest films of the year.

New technology has helped see an increase in brand count. 4DX-enabled cinema ads were created early last year with Xbox being the first advertiser to use this technology. The 4DX technology allows the cinemagoer to experience an all-round stimulation of senses by jiggling seats and blowing gusts of wind, fog, sprays of water at the audience.

2016 has been a good year for cinema and it shows no signs of slowing down in 2017 with another strong film slate including films such as Star Wars: Episode VIII, Despicable Me 3 and Beauty & The Beast.

Top 10 facts

1. 2016 was the fastest year ever to reach £1 billion at the UK Box Office (282 days) This was mainly due to a large amount of superhero films early in the year (Spill over admissions from Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Captain America: Civil War.

2. Admissions are up 2% YoY (January - October) *we are yet to see official data from November onwards

3. The number 1 grossing film of the year is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story with £56.4m (still running)

4. This is closely followed by the top grossing family film of the year, The Jungle Book with £46.1m

5. Bridget Jones’s Baby reaches £30m in just 17 days – the fastest pace ever set for a romantic comedy

6. Brand count rose by around 5% in 2016 to reach 370.

7. There was a more even spread of results in 2016 with twelve films grossing more than £30m, this is compared to eight in 2015.

8. Disney has set a new record for the biggest sales by a studio in a single year after taking more than $7bn (£5.66bn) at the global cinema box office in 2016.

9. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story comfortably topped the box office with £17.3m, the biggest opening weekend total of the year

10. The cinema box office in the UK and Ireland achieved its best-ever results, amassing £1.32bn. This is 1.5% higher than 2015.