Provisional data on cinema consumption on the commercial circuit in 2023 also indicates that gross box office revenue increased by 31.6% compared to 2022, that is, it increased by 17.4 million euros (ME) to a total of 72.8 ME.
These increases mean a clear recovery in theater viewing since the Covid-19 pandemic, but if the years marked by confinements and theater closures (2020-2021) are excluded, the data also shows that audience and box office revenue are at the exhibition level between 2014 and 2015.
In 2023, exhibitors promoted 541,911 sessions in 565 cinemas. Out of every four cinemas, one was located in the Lisbon district.
This distributor added 30 ME of revenue and five million spectators in 2023, in particular for having premiered the three most profitable and watched films that year in Portugal: “Barbie”, “Fast and Furious X” and “Oppenheimer”.
“Barbie”, by Greta Gerwig, had 893,787 spectators and 5.2 ME in revenue, “Fast and Furious X”, by Louis Leterrier, which had scenes filmed in Portugal, had 691,439 spectators and 4.2 ME in the box office, and “Oppenheimer,” by Christopher Nolan, garnered 552,332 entries and a 3.7 ME.
The most-watched Portuguese film in 2023 was “Pôr do Sol: The Mystery of the São Cajó Necklace”, by Manuel Pureza, with 118,671 spectators and around 693 thousand euros in box office revenue.