Crocus Group first VP warns about empty cinema halls

First Vice President of Crocus Group Emin Agalarov has said that cinemas are at risk of closing in the coming months.

“Russian film studios should release Hollywood-level films "every day" for people to attend cinemas. The film industry is one of the sectors most affected as a result of the current geopolitical situation,” Agalarov said in an interview with RBC.

“Without Western premieres, cinema attendance has fallen by almost 70 per cent. This is a cosmic figure that is relevant to the attendance of the shopping centre as a whole,” he added.

The attendance declined after the Western major companies cancelled their movie releases. Four major Hollywood studios, namely, Disney, Warner Bros., Sony and Paramount announced the cancellation of their movie releases in Russia on March 1, 2022, and Universal Pictures made a similar decision on March 2, 2022.

As a result, the new “Batman” with Robert Pattinson in the title role (worldwide collections of the film exceeded $770 million), “Morbius” film with Jared Leto (almost $164 million) and “Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness” with Benedict Cumberbatch (more than $911 million), the continuation of the prequel "Harry Potter" - "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" (more than $400 million) were not demonstrated in Russia.

The demand for these pirated films testifies to the fact that they could be popular among the Russian audience and attract viewers to cinemas, which lost 50 billion roubles ($881 million) in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and have just begun to recover thanks to the complete removal of restrictions.

According to Group-IB’s opinion, the new "Batman" topped the rating of films, the biggest number of illegal copies of which were available on RuNet in April 2022. Fantastic Beasts, Sonic 2 Movies, and Varyag were in the top 3 in popularity among pirates in May 2022. The Cinema Fund estimated the share of foreign films in the Russian box office at almost 75 per cent (30.3 billion roubles or $533 million) in 2021.

“We have 22 rooms in Vegas and Crocus. Let’s multiply this by 500-700 people - that's 12,000-17,000 people per session. Earlier, all these halls were full of people. In order for cinemas to continue to attract viewers, Russia “must overtake Hollywood, which has been around for 100 years, in a few months, and start producing films that the whole country wants to go to. And not once a year, but every day,” Agalarov added.
The Association of Cinema Owners recorded a drop in the revenues of Russian cinemas amid the absence of Hollywood films by 44 per cent in March 2022 and by 54 per cent in April 2022. The association predicted in early May 2022 that due to a lack of films, half of the venues could close soon, and overall revenues would fall by 80 per cent. The maximum revenues until late 2022, according to the association, can be no more than 6.1 billion roubles ($106 million). For comparison, Russian cinema collected 10.4 billion roubles ($181 million), and the total distribution exceeded 40 billion roubles ($697 million) in 2021.

Seven out of 22 halls are temporarily closed at the KARO Vegas 22 cinema, located in the Vegas shopping mall due to the current situation, a representative of the cinema network told RBC.

While commenting on the situation, Agalarov said that soon "cinema halls will be empty and "it will be possible to play tennis there".

Proceeding from the current statistics of the State Film Fund, the situation has worsened. The number of spectators has fluctuated from 0.9 million people to 1.2 million people a week since May 5, 2022. The number of spectators ranged from 1.8 million people to 3.3 million people per week in May 2021.