A new report by the European Audiovisual Observatory found that admissions to theatrical animation films have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, reaching 880 million worldwide in 2024. However, European markets are struggling with lower attendance and a smaller market share, despite outperforming live-action films in terms of admissions, exports and co-productions.
By Eirini PolydorouA new report was published by the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) providing a comprehensive overview of market characteristics and ticket sales of theatrical animation films during 2017 - 2024, focusing on Europe.
The findings of the Theatrical animation films report, suggest a worldwide recovery of admissions for theatrical animation films to pre-pandemic levels, “reaching over 880 million in 2024 which equaled the three-year pre-pandemic average”.
"Animation is bouncing back: Admissions for animation films have fully recovered post-pandemic, even as the overall theatrical market is still struggling" stated Nicolas Edmery, the author of the report in his post in LinkedIn.
This was not the case for European animation films which “sold 33 million tickets on average per year between 2022 and 2024, compared to a pre-pandemic average of 42 million”.
Compared to live-action films, European animation films achieved a 38% higher on average admissions between 2022 and 2024. While European films lost 2% of their European live-action film market to US films compared to 2017-2019, animation films achieved a 4% increase. However, they still account for a significantly smaller market share in Europe compared to live-action films (image below).
The highest percentages of animation films over total admissions were observed in Belgium and Iceland with 57% and 33% respectively.
Approximately 67% of European animation films average admissions stemmed from export admissions, while this was less than 40% for live-action films.
French animation titles lead in admissions, with 8.1 million tickets sold in national and non-national markets.
The biggest European markets for animation films were France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Poland, accounting for 62% of all submissions.
A higher percentage was achieved for European animation films also in terms of co-productions, as “42% percent of European animation films produced between 2017 and 2024 were international co-productions compared to 27% of live-action films”.
Budget-wise, the average budget for a European animation fiction film was EUR 5.9 million, compared to EUR 3.6 million for live-action films.
Find the report here
Image by seok shin from Pixabay - Free for use under the Pixabay Content License.
Images in the text - Courtesy of the Theatrical animation films report by the European Audiovisual Observatory, available here
