Italy’s box office revenues remained stable in 2024, totalling roughly €494 million ($513 million) in grosses and 70 million admissions – which is just slightly below the country’s $514 million 2023 intake.
Disney landed the year’s top 3 titles with “Inside Out 2,” which grossed $48.3 million locally; “Moana 2,” which pulled $20 million; and “Deadpool & Wolverine” which clocked in at $18.7 in the Italian theatrical market, according to figures released by national box office compiler Cinetel.
But amid a dearth of Hollywood blockbusters, due to the impact of last year’s Hollywood strikes, it was local movies, such as Italy’s sleeper hit “The Boy With Pink Pants,” that proved crucial to keeping the market buoyant. “The Boy With Pink Pants,” a teen drama by relatively unknown director Margherita Ferri about the harrowing true tale of a 15-year-old boy who took his own life after enduring bullying at school and online, became the year’s surprise big winner grossing more than $9 million following its Nov. 7 release, beating high-profile Hollywood titles such as “Wicked” and “Venom 3.” A similar phenomenon happened in France, where 2024’s top two movies were French movies, “A Little Something Extra” and “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which beat Hollywood blockbusters.
“Pink Pants,” which is produced and distributed by Tarak Ben Ammar‘s Rome-based Eagle Pictures, launched from the Rome Film Festival in October and, driven by a strong social media campaign, became a cultural phenomenon dethroning Paolo Sorrentino’s lavish love letter to Naples “Parthenope” – which pulled roughly $8 million in Italy – from the year’s numero uno position among local titles. “Parthenope,” which is Sorrentino’s 10th feature and the year’s number two local grosser, still marked the revered auteur’s personal best in terms of local returns, besting the local intake of his 2013 Oscar-winning hit “The Great Beauty.”
“Italian cinema is in good health, not just for the quality of its productions, but more significantly for the renewed relationship it has forged with the public,” said Benedetto Habib, who heads the Italian producers’ union, in a statement on Tuesday. Habib went on to note that there are currently four national productions among the country’s top ten grossers between August 2024 and Jan. 6. 2025.
Italian productions in 2024 accounted for more than 25% of local ticket sales which pales in comparison with the 44.4% market share commanded last year by local productions in France – a much bigger market – but is significantly more than the 19% local market share scored by Spanish films in Spain, which in 2024 turned out to be a just slightly bigger market than Italy with 71 million admissions compared with Italy’s 70 million tickets sold.
Though the Italian industry is quite upbeat about the country’s 2024 box office results, the numbers remain somewhat alarming considering that prior to the pandemic, the benchmark of a good year was considered 100 million admissions. So 70 million is still way below par.
Cinetel in a statement underlined the importance of the 2024 summer season, which in Italy has historically been a sore spot, noting that the best box-office grosses were recorded between June and August and during the Christmas holiday period when local moviegoing was up 28% compared to 2023. During the recent holiday season Italian productions and co-productions accounted for a 45% share of the total intake. Overall, seven out of 12 months during 2024 saw higher admissions and grosses compared to the same periods in 2023, Cinetel noted.
