German Box Office Rebounds in 2023, Nearing Pre-Pandemic Levels

Scott Roxborough
·2 min read

German movie theaters staged an impressive comeback in 2023, with ticket sales rising 18.5 percent and box office revenue jumping 23.7 percent compared with 2022, according to preliminary results by box office analysis firm Comscore.

The figures, which cover the period from Jan. 5, 2023 to Jan. 3, 2024 show a total of 87.2 million tickets sold in the territory for a total box office take of $940 million (859 million euros). That’s slightly below Gower Street’s box office estimate for Germany, which put the market at $1.01 billion for 2023. Germany’s Federal Film Board, the FFA, will publish official figures in early February.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

The bump can be partially attributed to inflation, but average ticket admission prices in Germany only ticked up 4.4 percent last year, well below the general inflation rate in the country.

Greta Gerwig’s pink powerhouse Barbie, which earned $60.6 million (55.3 million euros) in Germany, and James Cameron’s sci-fi sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, which grossed $73.1 million (66.7 million euros) of its $148 million German haul in 2023, were the top titles of the year.

Last year’s box office was off 8.2 percent compared to the average of the three pre-COVID years, from 2017 to 2019, while admissions were down a more concerning 18.2 percent.

There were no breakout German hits, even though a handful of local titles cracked the $10 million mark, including Til Schweiger’s Manta, Manta: Legacy ($13 million), kids mystery movie Die drei ??? – Erbe des Drachen ($11.6 million) and David Wnendt’s crime drama Sun and Concrete ($10 million). Overall, the box office for local releases was down 2.5 percent from an already weak 2022. There was also less local variety. Comscore reported a 9 percent drop in new local releases in Germany compared to 2022 and a nearly 21 percent decline when compared with 2019.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter