Portugal has become the latest European market to successfully achieve the Stage 2 target of Gower Street’s Blueprint To Recovery. The market finally achieved the goal on Saturday August 8, which saw business boosted by a trio of new openers.
To achieve its Stage 2 target (a daily box office equivalent to the previous lowest day of box office from the previous two years – what Gower Street considers a “base day”) Portugal needed to generate a single day box office of just over €39k.
As seen in UAE (the previous EMEA market to hit Stage 2), it took time for Portugal to re-build its market to hit the first box office goal of the Blueprint To Recovery. In contrast, some markets, like France and the Netherlands, have been able to do so immediately upon re-opening with a co-ordinated re-opening effort that brought most cinemas back in one go.
Cinemas in Portugal were allowed to re-open at reduced capacity from June 1 but few did so initially and the first full weekend back (June 4-7) generated just €2k, according to our partners at Comscore Movies. Most cinemas finally re-opened for the July 2-5 weekend, which saw 88% of cinemas by market share operational on Saturday July 4. Even so, that weekend only grossed €38k across the entire 4-day period.
Business has increased every week since, hitting €147k this weekend (Aug. 6-9) according to latest data from Comscore. More importantly, Saturday achieved €42,600 to take the Stage 2 target. Sunday then repeated the feat, with box office up over Saturday. Three new openers fueled business, led by French comedy WELCOME TO THE MALAWAS (RENDEZ-VOUS CHEZ LES MALAWAS) at #1, followed by Warner Bros’ SCOOB! and Afghan-war drama THE OUTPOST, starring Scott Eastwood and Orlando Bloom. Both WELCOME TO THE MALAWAS and THE OUTPOST were released by local major Lusomundo.
Gower Street’s Growth Trackers (as seen above for Portugal) measure progress toward recovery goals. These feature in our weekly Road To Recovery reports for 30 global markets, 12 Canadian provinces and all 50 US states. Access a free trial of these reports here.
