Icelandic Admissions/BO: local films regain strength after weaker 2022

Since its January 6 release via Sena, Elsa María Jakobsdóttir’s debut feature Wild Game (Villibráð) has sold a record 44,139 tickets, which is already more than the last Icelandic champion Cop Secret by Hannes Þór Halldórsson (41,534 admissions/76.3 million kr in 2021), although below Baldvin Z’s drama Let Me Fall (52,901 admissions/87 million kr in 2018).

A remake of the Italian comedy Perfect Strangers (Perfetti sconoscuti) by Paolo Genovese, Wild Game tells of a dinner party that turns sour when the seven adults reunited decide to play with their cell phones: They will share all their messages and social media activity with the rest of the group. But that game of ‘honesty’ soon puts their friendship at stake.

Hailed by some local reviewers as the funniest film in years, Wild Game is also carried by an all-star Icelandic cast including Aníta Briem, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Gísli Örn Garðarsson, Hilmar Guðjónsson, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir and Þuríður Blær Jóhannsdóttir.
The ZikZak Production was still number 2 at the Top 10 Iceland last weekend after 6 weeks, a proof of is strong box office leg.

Another Icelandic film kept its No1 spot at the local Top 10 for the second weekend in a row: Oskar Thor Axelsson’s international thriller Operation Napoleon which has sold already 13,814 tickets for Samfilm. This places the Sagafilm production already ahead of last year’s second biggest Icelandic film of the year: the family musical 12 Hours to Destruction (Abbababb) with its 12,128 admissions.

The audience-pulling power of Wild Game and Operation Napoleon are reassuring signs, after last year’s 9.4% drop in admissions for local fare, from 85,737 in 2021 to 77,662 in 2022, and 12.8% drop in box-office to ISK 128 million, according to the national rights holders’ association FRÍSK.

Icelandic films posted a 9% market-share last year, thanks largely to the comedy The Very Last Fishing Trip by Örn Marino Arnarson and Thorkell S. Hardarson which garnered 24,258 admissions.

US films claimed - as usual - the lion share of the market (86%), driven by the top-seller Minions: The Rise of Gru and Avatar: The Way of Water took the fourth place at the Top 10 with nearly 60 million kr from 34,797 admissions.

But as underlined by the Icelandic Film Centre’s departing director Laufey Guðjónsdóttir (see our interview: Laufey Guðjónsdóttir on her 20 years at the helm of the Icelandic Film Centre, as she steps down - CLICK HERE) market share for Icelandic films has to be evaluated within the context of the low volume of local films released annually - 19 new films in 2022 including 9 documentaries.

The top selling Nordic-non Icelandic-films in 2022 were:

• Triangle of Sadness (Sweden) with 8,651 admissions/14.2 million kr in B.O.
• Little Allan-The Human Antenna (Denmark) with 3,150 admissions/4.1 million kr B.O.
• The Worst Person in the World (Norway) with 1,078 admissions/1.4 million kr. B.O.

The biggest Icelandic documentary was Welcome Árni by Viktoría Hermannsdóttir.

Meanwhile general attendance in Iceland (which remains one of the strongest per capita in the world) is slowly rebounding, as ticket sales in 2022 soared 10.4% from 2021 to 845,699, and gross box office 18% to ISK1.2 billion, although total revenues were still 33% down from 2019.

Daníel Traustason from the Icelandic rights holder association FRISK, said he is very optimistic for 2023, as “the tradition of going to the cinemas in Iceland is very deep in our culture, and with no restrictions, people will not want to miss great movies on the big screen.”

To download the ICELANDIC 2022 ADMISSION CHARTS: CLICK HERE.