Italian cinema box office hits record highs in 2016, market share grows

In 2016, Italian cinema experienced a significant boom, with box office data from Cinetel showing 105,385,195 tickets sold, a 6.06% increase from 2015. Revenue reached €661,844,025, up 3.86%. The market share for Italian films rose to 28.71% in attendance, compared to 21.35% in 2015, while US films dropped from 60.01% to 55.19%. A total of 554 films were distributed in 2016, up from 480 in 2015. The positive trend continued into 2017 with the Cinema2Day initiative, promoted by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage under Minister Dario Franceschini, offering €2 tickets on the second Wednesday of each month. On its first edition in 2017, 1.13 million tickets were sold across about 3,000 participating theaters, the best result since the promotion launched in September. The highest attendance was at Uci-Cinemas Bicocca in Milan with 13,511 tickets, followed by The Space in Rome Magliana (10,141), Città del Cinema in Foggia (9,852), and The Space in Naples (9,638). Franceschini called it a great success, showing Italians are returning to the magic of the cinema.