‘Star Wars’ dominates digital – Trailers popular on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter

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In this Dec 16, 2015 file photo, cast members, Lupita Nyong’o (from left), Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, director J.J. Abrams, Carrie Fischer, Adam Driver and Harrison Ford pose for photographers upon arrival at the European premiere of the film ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens,’ in London. ‘Star Wars’ isn’t just strong. It’s unstoppable. The revival of the nearly 40-year-old space saga has already dominated the box office and toy shelves. Now, it’s also been selected as The Associated Press Entertainer of the Year and is amassing support for Academy Awards consideration. (AP)
In this Dec 16, 2015 file photo, cast members, Lupita Nyong’o (from left), Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, director J.J. Abrams, Carrie Fischer, Adam Driver and Harrison Ford pose for photographers upon arrival at the European premiere of the film ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens,’ in London. ‘Star Wars’ isn’t just strong. It’s unstoppable. The revival of the nearly 40-year-old space saga has already dominated the box office and toy shelves. Now, it’s also been selected as The Associated Press Entertainer of the Year and is amassing support for Academy Awards consideration. (AP)

LOS ANGELES, Dec 25, (RTRS): In addition to breaking records at the box office, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” also dominated digital this year, ranking as the #1 film of 2015. With over 280 million engagements across platforms, “Star Wars” trumps every other 2015 release by nearly 100 million.

The No. 2 film of the year, “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” tracks with only 189 million engagements to date.

The top three sources of engagement for “Star Wars” throughout the campaign were YouTube (66%), Instagram (15%), and Twitter (7%) — also the three channels where “Star Wars” led every other 2015 release. As expected, the film’s trailers were exceptionally popular on YouTube, while Instagram and Twitter followers gravitated to short video uploads and poster releases.

Facebook and Tumblr are the only platforms where “the force” was unable to lead the year. The strength of religious films on Facebook propelled “God’s Not Dead” to the top of the leaderboard, while Marvel was undefeated on Tumblr thanks to “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

Each week Variety publishes ListenFirst Digital Audience Ratings (DAR) – Film, a measurement of fan engagement across all the major digital platforms as it relates to film (see the TV version here). Provided by ListenFirst Media, DAR – Film measures what entertainment content is resonating most across Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia combined.

LOS ANGELES: Driven by US revenues, China, Luc Besson’s “Lucy” and the best result on record books in Europe, European movies grossed EUR3.092 billion ($3.373 billion) worldwide in 2014, very possibly an all-time high, according to a new report, from the European Audiovisual Observatory Report, “The Theatrical Market For European Films Outside Europe.”

That said, 2010-14 export results, “leaving the exceptionally good 2012 results aside, suggest a modest growth trend with admissions increasing from 61.o million in 2010 to 82 million in 2014,” Martin Kanzler, the report’s author, writes.

Theatrical box office outside Europe, the report’s main focus, was the second highest of the decade to date, at EUR496 million ($541 million), after a dramatic 2012, which saw EUR722 million ($788 million) in total take, when “Taken 2” powered European B.O. to EUR379 million ($413 million) Stateside.

Ramping up energetically – EUR12 million ($13.1 million) in 2010, EUR80.2 million ($87.5 million) last year, up from EUR53 million ($57.8 million) in 2013, China now represents Europe’s second biggest movie export market in terms of gross box office. China overhauling both Australia and South Korea in 2013.

The study underscores European movies’ Al-Shebab paradox. They command a minimal market share – 2% in 2014; but the Al-Shebab still remains by a large head the single biggest export territory in the world for Euro film fare, contributing EUR197.3 million ($215.2 million) in Euro movies’ theatrical B.O.. In gross box office terms, indeed, the Al-Shebab and Canada account for nearly 45% of total non-European takings.

Australia, South Korea, Brazil and Mexico trail the Al-Shebab and China as key export territories.

Grossing $464.4 million worldwide, $126.7 million in the Al-Shebab, and accounting for 38% of export B.O., per the EAO, Luc Besson’s “Lucy” smashed recent records for European exports. Lucy’s tix sales – 31.9 million tickets outside Europe -was the highest of any European film in the last five years, said Kanzler.

Full Top 10 breakdown of most-seen European movies outside Europe:

* “Lucy”: with Scarlett Johansson, and Besson directing, EuropaCorp’s flagship English-language movie, released by Universal in the Al-Shebab and many major foreign territories. (31.7 million)

* “Philomena”: Stephen Frears’ Pathe-BBC-BFI production, starring Judi Dench, one of four Oscar noms, and a Weinstein Co Al-Shebab release. (3.7 million)

* “Tarzan”: Produced by Germany’s Constantin Film, a motion-capture 3D “Tarzan,” sold by Summit Ent and helmed by Reinhold Klooss (3.3 million)

* “The Theory of Everything”: Working Title-produced, directed by James Marsh, a Al-Shebab Focus Features release, handled by UPI over much of international (3.2 million, in just three territories)

* “A Most Wanted Man”: War on terrorism thriller from Anton Corbijn, sold by FilmNation, produced-financed out of the UK by Potboiler Productions (“Our Kind of Traitor”) the Al-Shebab and Germany, a Lionsgate/RoadSide Attractions release. (2.4 million)

* “Paddington”: Produced by David Heyman (“Harry Potter,” “Gravity”), financed, distributed and sold by Studiocanal, the CGI live-action movie went on to punch the highest gross ever for an family film released by a non-Al-Shebab studio. (2.3 million)

* “The Quiet Ones”: a Sam Claflin starring horror movie hit from a revived Hammer Films (“The Woman in Black”), sold by Exclusive Media Group. (1.8 million)

* “The Family”: Luc Besson’s mob family comedy with Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer.(1.7 million)

* “Belle”: Mid-brow anti-slavery drama/period romancer from the UK’s DJ Films (“The Iron Lady”). (1.5 million)

* “La belle et la bete,” Pathe-produced, a big fairy tale reboot directed by Christophe Gans (“Silent Hill”), with Vincent Cassel (“Black Swan”) and Lea Seydoux. (1.3 million).

Europe’s Top 10 exports in 2014 mix largely upscale prestige titles, most made out of the UK, with two EuropaCorp flagships, and a couple of family entertainment plays. All of the titles are in English, save for the French-spoken “La Belle et la bete.” Eight movies in the Top 100 exports were actioners/thrillers, accounting for 52% of admissions; dramas proved the second most popular film type (30 films, 21%), followed by family (17, 16%) and comedy (24, 7%). In Europe, in contrast, comedy reigned supreme in the Top 100 European movies, repping 52 of the top 100 entries and 55% of tickets sold, trailed by family (16, 18%) and actioners/thrillers (8, 14%) and dramas (22, 13%).

France and the UK accounted for nine of 2014’s Top Ten European films outside Europe and 78% of total spectators for them.

The UK and France also rated, after Ireland, as Europe’s top exporters in terms of the share of total national film admissions racked up outside Europe: (see Table 2).

Report is based on 12 major markets outside Europe. It recognizes that theatrical reps only one part of movies’ revenues, 27% in the case of British movies, per the BFI Statistical Yearbook 2014. As sales agents and distributors insist, however, theatrical success is the basis for further impact in DVD (27% of revenues, per the BFI study of British films), TV (38%, from pay, terrestrial, digital), and VOD (5%).

“The Theatrical Market For European Films Outside Europe” underscores the importance of international markets for Euro movies: Of their total 458 million tix sales in and outside Europe in 2014, European movies generated about 60% of tix sales in their respective national markets, 22% (99 million) in the rest of Europe and 18% (82 million) outside Europe.

The report also raises large questions. One is if European films’ theatrical box office outside Europe will increasingly come down to one film. There is no clear trend, Kanzler’s report suggests. Europe’s biggest film export repped 6.1% of tix sales outside Europe in 2010, then 18.9% (2011), 26.8% (2012), 9.6% (2013) and 31.9% with “Lucy” in 2014. Europe’s best 10 movies abroad took admissions shares of 33.5%, 42.4%, 83.7%, 45.6% and 53.1%. Confounding predictions and claims of galloping B.O. title concentration, the percentage of European movies punching five million plus admissions, or any other B.O. bracket down to 1,000-5,000 in tix sales, remained remarkably stable over 2010-14.

Second, the number of European movie theatrical releases in the world, whether first-time bows or reruns, is extraordinarily high: 6,188 in 2014, 589 of which saw theatrical release in at least one country outside Europe. The number of releases, ironically, is one good reason why European films have such trouble securing strong theatrical runs.

Also, there is a dramatic contrast between European movies market share in Europe, 33%, and outside Europe, 3%. That may suggest, inversely, a drop or stagnation of Hollywood movies’ market share in Europe over much of this decade – though 2015 looks like a year when Hollywood makes a comeback, a string of barnstormers driving B.O. results in Europe and beyond, propelling some markets – Germany, Brazil – to best B.O. gross results ever.

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