Romania’s fast growth in cinema admissions and box office revenues over the past years reflects the big gap to the rest of the EU movie market.

Romanians bought 10.2 million movie tickets in 2014, 12.4% more than in 2013, and spent a total of EUR 41.7 million. The box office takings in Romania thus increased by about 15% last year, which is the highest growth rate of all 28 member states in the European Union, according to statistics released by the European Audiovisual Observatory.

Overall, gross box office revenues in the 28 EU countries increased by only 0.6% to EUR 6.32 billion in 2014. The growth was proportional to the change in underlying admissions that grew modestly by 0.7% to an estimated 911 million tickets sold. Ticket sales declined in some of Europe’s biggest markets such as Germany, UK, and Italy.

Romania’s movie market has seen the highest growth rate over the last five years. The total number of movie tickets sold in Romania almost doubled from 5.2 million in 2009 to 10.2 million in 2014. The box office revenues also more than doubled from an estimated EUR 20.4 million to EUR 41.7 million, European Audiovisual Observatory data shows.

The fast growth was supported by the opening of new modern cinemas (multiplexes) not only in Romania’s capital Bucharest but also in smaller cities such as Focsani, Botosani, and Targu Jiu.

However, the Romanian movie market is still low even when compared to peer markets in Central and Eastern Europe. According to the statistics, only one in two Romanians (50%) went to the movies in 2014, compared to two in three Bulgarians (67%).

In Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland, the rate is greater than one movie ticket per capita. The Brits buy, on average, more than two movie tickets each year, while the French buy more than three.

Despite higher movie ticket sales in Romania, local moviegoers generally neglect local films. National productions accounted for only 2.2% of the overall box office revenues in Romania, in 2014, which is one of the lowest shares in Europe, and also less than the 2.6% share in 2013.

Despite the international awards received by Romanian movies and directors in recent years, Romanians prefer foreign movies, especially American, which is the case for most European markets. However, in more developed markets, such as Germany, UK, Italy, and even Poland and Czech Republic, the local productions get more than a quarter of all box office takings. In France, the local films have more than 40% market share.

The best-selling Romanian movie in local cinemas last year was the comedy #Selfie, which sold little over 100,000 tickets and had some EUR 260,000 revenues. It didn’t even make it to the top 50 best-selling movies of the year. The last movie of The Hobbit trilogy got the first spot, with 526,000 tickets sold and EUR 2.44 million in revenues.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was also the most watched movie in the EU in 2014, with over 22.6 million tickets sold.

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Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com