DECRYPTING. Cinema: empty rooms, high ticket prices, competition for platforms … What if the big screen had become an “outdated concept”?

“Exceptional situation”. However, “a unique performance in the world”, “the best post-Cavid recovery in all comparable countries, including the United States”. For example, At the time of completing the year 2024. For example, on December 31, the National Cinema Center (CNC) did not shift its pleasure at the time of the annual assessment in theaters with 181.3 million admissions while the average over the 2009-19-19 decade revolved around 200 million.

To establish this score last year. Meanwhile, French productions have decrypting. cinema: empty rooms, high largely contributed by placing three films in the top 5 of the box office: A little extra thing (10,31 millions), The Comte de Monte Cristo (9.13), without forgetting Love phew (4.73). In addition, 25 million admissions just for three films “made in France” : unheard of since 2011. For example, year of exit of intouchables and Nothing to declare.

An embellishment then agony? – Decrypting. cinema: empty rooms, high

But after a more. Nevertheless, less enchanted parenthesis, the alarm clock is brutal in 2025, marking a return to a much d hearing reality. Since January. the attendance of the rooms has continued to accumulate successive monthly decreases, with a first half of all at a historically low level (75 million recorded tickets) and never seen for 28 years, excluding COVID.

Over the first seven months of 2025, attendance accused a decrease of 13.6 % decrypting. cinema: empty rooms, high compared to last year, with 89.5 million admissions against 103.6 in 2024. The decline is particularly strong in May and June, with falls above 20 %.

Blockbusters who disappoint

“When we see a drop in entries based on the figures of 2024. we forget that it was an exceptional and even extraordinary year, tempered Alexis Mas, at the head of the Condor distribution company, a few days ago with Telerama referred to it to Artus boxes (A little extra thing)or of Pierre Niney in the shoes of Edmond Dantes (The Comte de Monte Cristo). The year 2025 started badly too and, at this stage, there was no miracle to save us. This reminds us that we are still in post-Cavid period: the fracture caused by the pandemic is not healed. “

In the absence of locomotives in decrypting. cinema: empty rooms, high recent weeks. it is difficult to relaunch the machine. Whether it’s the last Mission Impossible With Tom Cruise (May). F1 The film or Jurassic World : Renaissance Who are still in theaters: none of these blockbusters have yet exceeded 3 million admissions when they could expect much better.

On the French side too. the time is no longer in Cocorico with only the latest film in the saga of Tuche In the top 10,2025 (3 million admissions). It remains much better than fiasco Papamobilewith Kad Merad. since the film was only screened in 7 rooms in France on the day of its release (August 13). This Friday. August 22, nevertheless, its director announced on Franceinfo that the film was finally going to be broadcast in 30 additional rooms. A lesser evil.

Price of places. competition of platforms

What if, as often, the question decrypting. cinema: empty rooms, high of the price partly explained this desertion of dark rooms? According to an Ipsos survey published in February on the sidelines of CESAR. 70 % of French people indicate that they would gladly go more to the cinema if the price of tickets was not as high.

The CNC estimates the average price of a ticket at € 7.42 in 2024, a figure fired down by promotions, youth or business committees subscriptions … In fact, spectators pay much more, especially in multiplexes, which concentrate 56.8 % of hexagon entries. Just in Toulouse, for example, you have to pay € 15.60 at the normal price for a session in a Pathé, the market leader in France with 857 screens. It’s more than a standard Netflix subscription at € 14.99…

In this context. for the boss of the American streaming giant Ted decrypting. cinema: empty rooms, high Sarandos, seeing films in a movie theater would have become an “outdated concept” for the majority of people, as he explained last April during a evening organized by Time Magazine.

And the latter to drive the nail by proposing his analysis about the decline of the box. office noted all over the world at the moment: “What does that say? What is the public trying to make us understand? He prefers to watch the movies at home, thank you very much!” Or simply that it is not seduced by the offer offered in theaters with a plethoric choice but not. necessarily of quality.