Falcon soared: holiday box office collections set a new record
According to preliminary calculations by Izvestia, based on data from the Unified Administrative Information System (UAIS), Russian box office receipts during the New Year holidays exceeded 6 billion rubles. Almost all of this box office was made by domestic films, in particular the blockbusters "The Wizard of the Emerald City. The Yellow Brick Road" and "Finist. The First Bogatyr," as well as the 11th installment of the "Christmas Tree" franchise. This is a new record in the modern history of film distribution in Russia, but the impressive amount was provided primarily by the rise in ticket prices. Attendance of halls fell by almost 14%, reported "Izvestia" in the Association of cinema owners. The reason is the lack of strong releases for adult audiences against the backdrop of two large-scale projects for children and family audiences.
Dues increased, attendance sagged
Box office receipts at the Russian box office from January 1 to January 8 (a period the industry calls the New Year's Eve battle) renewed a record: over the first holidays of 2025, cinemas collectively collected 6,495,917,133 rubles (including pre-sales). Most of this box office money came from tickets for Russian films - 6,415,953,326. These are preliminary results of the New Year's Eve battle, which Izvestia calculated on the basis of public data from the Unified Federal Automated Information System (UAIS), which is operated by the Cinema Fund.
This year, the center of attraction was the fairy-tale blockbusters "The Wizard of Emerald City" by Igor Voloshin and "Finist. The First Bogatyr" by Dmitry Dyachenko. The first over the holiday weekend earned 2.5 billion rubles without taking into account pre-sales - as a result, "Wizard" "Kholop" lost. Finist" has 1.9 billion rubles at the box office, excluding presales. But, as Izvestia wrote, if you look at the most important criterion for the market - the workload per session - it turns out that the films have approximately the same: 28 thousand rubles for "Wizard" and 25 thousand - for "Finist".
- Cinemas realized that both of these films have quite a lot of potential, and they were both given 35% of the airtime. And although the amount of time for each picture was given equally, "Finist. The First Bogatyr" additionally aired an almost ten-minute special episode of "Cheburashka" before the show. Thus, it simply increased its duration, and in this amount of airtime fit a little less sessions. Movie theaters didn't do separate privileges for either The Wizard or Finist. And this is probably one of the few times when almost 90% of the movie theater market made this decision. It was approved by the distributors themselves," Alexei Voronkov, head of the Association of Cinema Owners (AVK), told Izvestia.
A still from the movie "The Wizard of Oz".
The number of tickets sold from January 1 to January 8, 2025, amounted to 12.8 million, Voronkov said. Last year for the same period, this figure was estimated at 14.8 million. The new record in collections, the head of the AVK connects primarily with the increase in ticket prices, as attendance fell by almost 14% compared to 2024. The ticket price increased by about 85 rubles, which leveled out the drop in attendance, the expert believes.
- If on January 1, 2025 we had a record, then on January 7-8, attendance fell by more than 20% compared to 2024. As a result, during the eight days of operation, the shaft increased by 6.4% compared to last year, while attendance fell by almost 14%. The ticket price rose by about 85 rubles. But, given the fact that the cost of one session, according to our calculations, for the year increased by more than 21%, in general, this small increase in the shaft certainly did not bring more profit to cinemas than last year, - said Alexei Voronkov.
Last year during the January holidays cinemas in Russia collected 5.8 billion rubles, of which 5.5 billion - the fees from domestic films.
The headliners of the New Year's Battle - 2024 were "Bremen Musicians" by Alexei Nuzhny and the sequel "Kholop" by Klim Shipenko. "Kholop-2" became the leader, its collections amounted to 2,653,886,108 rubles. On the day of premiere, according to EAIS data, Shipenko's comedy earned more than 315 million rubles, which was a new record for January 1. The silver was "Bremen Musicians" - 1,967,964,300 rubles for eight holiday days.
Viewers have become satiated with fairy-tale content
The drop in attendance is by no means dictated by the unwillingness of people to go to the movies on holidays. After analyzing the performance of cinemas across the country, AVC concluded that the only reason for this decline is the lack of content for adult audiences.
- That year we had two headliners - "Bremen Musicians" and "Kholop-2". The first movie was for children and family audiences, plus the "Three Bounties" franchise was added. For adult audiences, the headliner was "Kholop-2." Two children's movies came out this year - "The Finist" and "The Wizard of Emerald City." Alas, I think that we will close January much worse than January 2024 precisely because of the lack of such content, - said the head of AVC.
The trend for a decline in attendance was recorded at the end of 2024, this trend has passed to the beginning of the year, says the president of the network of cinemas "Karo" Olga Zinyakova.
- The viewer has proven his loyalty to the domestic movie, now it is necessary to surprise him and warm up his attention. This requires genre diversity, not just family releases. The cumulative growth in collections took place thanks to the increased ticket price, which was a logical response to the general increase in prices. It is worth noting that this is the first increase in movie ticket prices in five years," she told Izvestia.
Still from the movie "Finist. The First Bogatyr."
Market participants fear 2026, when three blockbusters for children and family audiences will be released in early January - the sequel to "Cheburashka", the highest-grossing Russian film, as well as "Buratino" and "Prostokvashino". Three films for children's audiences will give a picture similar to this January, Voronkov is confident. Fairy tales for the third year remain the main driver of Russian film distribution. And, judging by the latest pitching in the Cinema Fund, will be with us at least until 2028. Hence the question: what should those who are not part of the audience for children's and family content watch?
- The morning and afternoon screenings did generate sold-out audiences. Evening sessions were not that half-empty, but this year was the first time we saw a number of evening sessions below 15% occupancy on New Year's Eve. There was no adult material, and everyone wanted a holiday. Many cinemas extended screenings of "Christmas Trees", tried to extend "Brothers". But, unfortunately, all that was in December, much help for the New Year did not provide, - states the expert.
Against the background of the lack of pictures for adult audiences worked quite well at the holidays franchise "Christmas Trees". Despite the fact that it started long before the New Year - December 14 began previews, the official distribution began on December 19 - the film collected 30-70 million a day. As a result, this is the third billion-dollar movie in terms of collections in 2025. Now the box office of the new "Christmas Trees" slightly exceeds 1 billion rubles.
The lull in alternative distribution
Among foreign films in the Russian box office led the horror "Astral. Nightmare at the Sping Garden" and "Sinister: New Souls", as well as the sequel to "The Adventures of Paddington". But expectedly none of them seriously competed with Russian releases. All of them are in the "basement" of the EAIS top-12. The specialized media also wrote that cinemas, among other things, refused to show Hollywood films under the scheme of pre-screening service during the New Year holidays.
For the lull period fell releases of the prequel "The Lion King" about Mufasa and the horror "Nosferatu" from the director of "Lighthouse" Robert Eggers. AVC notes that this decision is due to economic benefits for both distributors and cinemas: as soon as a strong Russian project is released, there is no point in working with any alternative content.
- No alternative content today produces such results as strong Russian cinema for the big screen. Year by year, this share of alternative content is falling: now it is clear that the New Year season is purely Russian cinema, and there are also strong Russian projects in the fall and spring. The box office for alternative content is only made in the summer, because no strong movie projects are set for this season in Russia. And the box office of alternative distribution is falling heavily from year to year. I think it will outlive itself within the next year, as we have previously predicted," concluded Alexei Voronkov.
A still from the "The Adventures of Paddington" threequel.
Officially, the results of the New Year's battle of 2025 and the forecast for January will be announced by the Cinema Fund in its newsletter on the EAIS website. Traditionally this happens on January 9, but at the time of publication of this material the document of the Cinema Fund could not be obtained. "Izvestia" will follow the final figures.
