Iceland first six months 2020: local comedy rules

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic and a shortage of new US Studio releases, the broad comedy from the Markell Brothers was the biggest cinema draw for Icelanders during the first half of 2020 according to FRISK cinema association.

Released early March by Myndform, The Last Fishing Trip grossed ISK 48,062,031 from 27,464 tickets until the end of June - despite a six-week cinema shutdown - representing 11.9% of all gross revenues, estimated at ISK 405,235,558, and 8.8% of all 592,440 tickets sold.

The film is the biggest local hit since Let Me Fall in 2018 (52,901 admissions).

TO SEE THE THE TOP 20 LIST OF ALL FILMS JANUARY - JUNE 2020 - CLICK HERE.

The second biggest local hit the first half of 2020 was Ragnar Bragason’s dark comedy The Garden with ISK 13,142,134 grosses from 8,509 tickets. The film was released January 10 by Sena.

Icelandic films attracted 37,392 cinemagoers, for a total gross of ISK 62,905,804, representing 15.5% of all grosses and 12% of admissions, a sharp contrast compared to last year’s 1.39% admission market share at the same period.

Again, due to the lack of US blockbusters, Icelandic films played in nearly twice the number of screens secured in 2019 (614 screens in 2020 vs 349 in 2019), and achieved an average per screen of 60.9 the first half of 2020, compared to 23.6 in 2019.

Due to Covid-19, general cinema attendance was almost halved compared to the same period in 2019, with 592,440 admissions in 2019 against 311,053 this year, and gross B.O. fell by 44.3% year on year, from ISK 728,072,196 in 2019 to ISK 405,235,558 in 2020.

The biggest studio movie was Sam Mendes’ 1917, released in January by Samfilm, with ISK 34,072,387 gross B.O. from 24,671 tickets sold.

The top selling Nordic (non-Icelandic) film was the Danish comedy Klown-the Final released February 7 by Sena, which grossed ISK 16,598,635 from 11,662 admissions, for an 8^th place at the Top 10.

The second biggest Nordic draw was the Danish animated film Checkered Ninja released January 31 by Sena, which posted ISK 2,690,377 from 2,440 admissions.

In third place was the Norwegian animated film Captain Sabertooth and the Magic Diamond released June 3 by Myndform, which grossed ISK 1,887,877 from 1,878 admissions.

Commenting on the current exhibition market, Daníel Traustason from FRISK said that health & safety restrictions due to Covid-19 have had a “tremendous” negative effect on cinemas that could only accept 100 people maximum per auditorium and had a 2-metre social distancing rule which meant that smaller halls could only allow up to 25 people per screening.

However since September 7, due to a recent curving down of the virus, the Icelandic government has relaxed the rules, to one metre social distancing in public spaces and a ban of groups over 200 instead of 100.