Moscow. January 2011. For the first time Russia and the CIS (except Ukraine) collected the box office exceeding one billion U.S. dollars in 2010. According to various sources, the figure varies between $ 1.05 and 1.15 bln. Notably, Ukraine has always been the second runner after Russia.
According to US research company Rentrak, Russia has become the sixth-largest film markets to follow Australia, Italy, South Korea and Spain. In 2010 the total box-office in Japan, India, France, Britain and Germany reached $1bln.
The box-office in Russia and the CIS has strongly grown after the crisis years of 2008 ($831.6 mln.) and 2009 ($735.9 mln). The ice-breaking effect was made exclusively by the three major Hollywood 3D record box-crashers – James Cameron’s Avatar ($117 mln), Shrek Forever ($51.36 mln) and Alice in Wonderland ($42.13 mln).
Russian films have not played a strong part in the domestic box-office: its 80 titles were not able to compete 320 imported films, mainly from Hollywood. In 2009 the share of Russian films accounted for 23.9 per cent of the total domestic box-office revenues ($176 mln) and in 2010 they made even less – 14,9 per cent ($153.6 mln). Only one film, a low-taste domestic comedy Our Russia: the fate of eggs took the seventh position ($22.2 mln) among in the box-office toppers.
Another reason for the boost of Russian box-office is the growth of an average ticket price – from $5.31 in 2009 to $6.37 in 2010 mainly with more movies now screened in 3D theatres, where ticket prices reach $ 15.
