2023 results in Russia.
Total box office reached 39 Billion RUR (126.1 m tickets), up +65% from 2022' 23.7 B, -4% down from pre-war 2021' 40.7 B.
Local productions brought 28 B RUR or 72% of the gross. In 2022 Russian films earned 12.3 B and 52% of total. Huge growth even without Cheburashka's record-setting 6.8 B.
Most big releases still concentrate around national and school holidays (2 weeks around New Year-Christmas, Feb 23th, Mar 8th, May 1-9, Nov 4th plus a few extra weekends like Feb 14th and Sep 1st when the school starts) to target maximum family audience. Summer remains empty, because it is considered too risky - families on vacations, kids in Summer camps, and teens/early 20s are unattracted to local films.
The State is currently the biggest investor in content: 11-12 B RUR from Ministry of Culture and 20-21 B RUR from Institute of Internet Development (per year in 2022-2023). There's also 100% state financing of children's films, probably some 1+ B RUR in various regional rebates and a special fund from Ministry of Defense. In 2024 Ministry of Culture will invest 16 B RUR.

http://www.insidekino.com/BO/2023.htm

I got a first look at the Top Ten releases of 2023 in 44 markets...

Beekeeper also surprised overseas. I didn't realize beekeepers were so globally appreciated.

$20.4M this weekend across 49 markets, $37.2M debut.

One Love in Jamaica had the biggest film opening of all time with 90% market share. $280k in 5 cinemas (PTA $56,000). The average net salary in Jamaica in 2015 was $2,337 USD so probably a Jaws / Star Wars type opening there. Couldn't find an updated # but it's a massive tally. $80M global launch.

It still has a lot of markets left to open in. Maybe another $50M at least domestic. I sort of feel like it is going to resonate a lot worldwide given the state of the world a movie called One Love just seems hopeful.

Dune 2 opens in South Korea on Wed and already has presales of $3.9M.

That's above Dune 1's 5-day opening ($3.1M) so it's clear this is going to be a MUCH bigger event there by a mile. Will be interesting to see if other global markets follow that which seems to be the case.

Some updates from Russia. As in most areas, Western sanctions have been a blessing for local production:
- online theaters rose +39% to 94 B RUR in 2023 (as per TMT), original titles production peaked in 2023, rising 40-45%
- foreign films share on TV dropped from 42% to 33% in 2023 (as per Mediascope)
- box-office in Jan-Feb is +6%, and +33% in Feb
- 6 out of Top-10 highest grossing Russian films of all time came out after Jan 1st 2023, 4 of those came out in 3 months from October 2023 to January 2024, 20 out of Top-100 (since 2004) came out after Feb 2022.
- last year one huge hit Cheburashka completely dominated the market with 6.8 B RUR, above and beyond anything else until Vyzov opened in April and brought 2.1 B RUR. This year we have:
Serf 2 with 3.8 B RUR
Bremen Musicians with 3 B RUR
Bulgakov's adaptation Master and Margarita with 2 B RUR and counting
Ice 3 with 1.5 B RUR and counting
Three heroes and the Navel of the Earth with 1.1 B RUR, now the highest grossing Russian animated film ever (and that's the 12th film in the franchise)
In March we'll have Pushkin's adaptation Onegin and another fairy tale musical The Flying Ship, in April sci-fi remake 100 Years Ahead and in May comic book adaptation sequel Major Grom.

For years industry lobbyists were saying Russian market would die without Hollywood, the audience wouldn't care about local films, proposed quota on local releases would kill cinemas, etc. Didn't happen.

Thought I'd share how we track box-office here in Russia - https://ekinobilet.fond-kino.ru/statistics/
It's a state-owned portal connected to EAIS (unified automated information system - a nationwide database used for taxes and customs), it's all free, there's no ads, no subscriptions, a lot of preset reports, it's updated every few minutes and you can track numbers online as they come in, including presales for the upcoming week. You can choose English, dollars, euros (based on actual rates - for instance, Cheburashka actually brought $97 m total and not $77 m like it is on BOM).

https://ekinobilet.fond-kino.ru/statistics/ - main box-office table, Top-20 (it's preset on today, but you can sort by day, weekend, week, month, year) with sales, admissions, screenings, b/o and audience per show. You can also choose and compare regions here (for example, this year's #1 box-office hit in Russia is Kholop 2, but in Moscow it's Master and Margarita)
https://ekinobilet.fond-kino.ru/statist ... te-report/ - daily totals report
https://ekinobilet.fond-kino.ru/statistics/report/ - analytics
https://ekinobilet.fond-kino.ru/films/ - a search engine and a movie database with data on budgets and state funds allocation
https://ekinobilet.fond-kino.ru/films/detail/111036223/ - current #1 film of the year