Yahoo Lifestyle French Movies Saw 11% Drop in International Box Office in 2024 With Estimated $255 Million Gross Despite Success of ‘The Count of Monte-Cristo’
French movies had a banner 2024 on home turf with a 44% market share at the French box office, which broke a 15-year record; meanwhile, Gallic films saw a 11% year-on-year drop in international revenues, according to figures unveiled by the National Film Board (CNC) and Unifrance during the Rendez-Vous in Paris market on Monday.
During the first 50 weeks of 2024, French movies generated 222.8 million euros ($227.2 million) from 33.4 million admissions outside France. Taking into account tickets sales during the second half of December, Unifrance anticipates the final box office for international will be closer to 38 million admissions and 250 million euros ($255.2 million) in revenues.
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While it doesn’t represent France in the Oscar race, “The Count of Monte-Cristo,” a three-hour epic adventure film adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ classic, ranks as the biggest French film export in 2024.
The movie, produced by Dimitri Rassam’s Mediawan-owned banner Chapter 2 and sold internationally by Pathé, has grossed an estimated 20.7 million euros from 3.3 million tickets across 54 territories. The epic swashbuckling movie, which was directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière, stars Pierre Niney as Edmond Dantès, a sailor wrongly accused of treason and imprisoned for 14 years, who sets off to take his revenge after losing everything. The movie, which ranks as France’s highest grossing film locally with nearly 10 million admissions sold in 2024, was released in the U.S. by Samuel Goldwyn Films on Dec. 20 in New York and Los Angeles, followed by additional U.S. cities in January.
“The Count of Monte-Cristo” is followed by Justine Triet’s Oscar-winning “Anatomy of a Fall” (4.9 million tickets) and Tran Anh Hung’s 2024 French Oscar submission “The Taste of Things” (1.6 million tickets) as top French-language film exports last year. All three movies world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The org is also taking into consideration French movies that shot in English, such as “Autumn and the Black Jaguar,” Gilles de Maistre’s youth-skewing movie. The latter sold 2.4 million tickets abroad in 2024.
Unifrance said the drop in international admissions for French movies is partly due to the absence of a family blockbuster such as the animated feature “Miraculous: The Movie,” which in 2023 had sold 7.5 million tickets overseas.
While presenting the figures, the CNC’s interim president Olivier Henrard and Unifrance’s co-managing director Gilles Renouard also pointed out the international performance of French cinema in 2024 closely mirrors the downward trend of the global box office, which was 9% down during the first 11 months of the year compared with 2023.
Analyzing the causes of this decline in theatrical admissions, Unifrance points to post-COVID recovery and the impact of the Hollywood strikes. “The 2024 film market was initially weakened by the absence of major Hollywood titles due to the five-month actors’ and writers’ strikes, but it ultimately created some opportunity for other film industries to gain more screen time,” said Renouard.
The report also highlighted the presence of French movies on streaming services and revealed that France ranked fifth in terms of nationality of foreign film released on streaming services in 2024 with a 3.8% market share. French movies were out in force at the top 10 international film festivals, including Cannes, Venice and Berlin, repping 22.8% of the selections — a bigger presence than that of any other country. 2025 is expected to see French cinema shine internationally with prestige movies like “Emilia Perez” and “The Substance” thriving in the awards season in the U.S.
Germany was the primary market for French movies with 4.1 million admissions sold there, followed by Russia, Mexico, Belgium, Luxembourg and Poland. North America is only the ninth market for French movies with 1.5 million tickets sold.
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