July Admissions Report

Landing the strongest month of the year, July reached a sizeable milestone despite failing to catch pre-pandemic figures.

Thanks mainly to the much-talked-about success of Minions: The Rise of Gru, alongside Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder, July admissions totalled 13.3m, marking the biggest month of 2022, putting it behind December last year when Spider-Man: No Way Home saw its release. However, despite surpassing 2021 by +71.4%, the month fell -28.7% behind 2019 when July saw a stellar slate, including the likes of Toy Story 4The Lion King and Spider-Man: Far from Home. The month delivered a decent 76% on pre-pandemic times (average across July 2017 to 2019), which put it on track with our in-house forecast.

Looking at the rest of the year, the MAT has increased to 130.8m (+403.5% on 2021), meanwhile the YTD total has grown to 75.0m (+311.0% on 2021), which has marginally increased the gap on last month to -26.8%. Showcasing the likes of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of Water, amongst other big-hitters, H2 should help to close this gap in time for the YE.

Hitting a homerun with the family audience, prequel Minions: The Rise of Gru ran straight into July’s no. #1 spot, pulling in a hefty £33.5m. It’s no surprise that Despicable Me has now become the favourite franchise among 7-14-year-olds. Picking up #2 place was Marvel’s latest effort, Thor: Love and Thunder, starring Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth, which garnered a solid £30.8m. Austin Butler astonished in Baz Luhrman’s shimmering biopic Elvis at #3, with a very respectable £13.7m. Next, Top Gun: Maverick held steady in its second month, blasting its way to #4 place with £10.8m. Dinosaur epic Jurassic World: Dominion fell into #5 with £5.4m, while, having defied predictions, Delia Owen’s adaptation Where the Crawdads Sing (#6) hit £3.8m. In #7 ranked animation superhero flick DC League of Super-Pets with £2.7m. In close pursuit, followed Jodie Comer’s theatre debut Prima Facie, which hit #8 place with £2.5m, ahead of Pixar’s sci-fi Lightyear, which scraped #9 spot with £2.4m. Finally, eighties classic Dirty Dancing (#10) returned as part of the Secret Cinema immersive experience with a further £2.4m.

September features a wide variety of genres, especially horror, and hotly anticipated releases with tremendous star-power. Chief among them is Olivia Wilde’s twisted drama Don’t Worry Darling, starring heavy-hitters Florence Pugh and Harry Styles. It’s set to pull in the key youth audience, alongside fellow horror Smile, with David Cronenberg’s sci-fi body horror Crimes of the Future, hack-and-slash comedy Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, and comical murder mystery See How They Run, starring Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan. For middle and older aged audiences with an upmarket skew, comes The Forgiven, starring Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain, fantasy romance Three Thousand Years of Longing with Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, Ticket to Paradise, which reunites George Clooney and Julia Roberts, together with Paul Gallico’s adaptation Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. For families, comes Tad the Lost Explorer and The Curse of the Mummy. Finally, 2010’s tentpole Avatar re-releases in anticipation of its sequel, which is set to be the highest grossing film of the year.