The answer is a resounding, YES!
This year is simply going to be huge. Titles such as Fifty Shades of Grey, Jurassic World, Jupiter Ascending, Maze Runner, Avengers: Age of Ultron, the finale of the Hunger Games series, the latest James Bond film, Spectre, and the first Star Wars film in a decade make it an exciting year. Then, to add to the list, there are some massive franchise titles being released with Fast and Furious 7, Mission Impossible 5, Taken 3, Magic Mike 2 and one that I am personally looking forward to, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
And the children’s line up is even better! The year started with the fabulous Paddington, then we can look forward to Shaun the Sheep, SpongeBob Squarepants 2, Maya the Bee, Peanuts, Pixar’s first release in sometime, Inside Out and Minions which is a spin-off from Despicable Me 2. Specifically for the girls there is Barbie Princess Power. Other great family titles include live action retellings of classic children’s stories such as Cinderella, Pan (Peter Pan), The Jungle Book and of course, that perennial favourite, Annie.
Lets also not forget the awards season that features a number of outstanding titles and actors, as well as the ambitious projects from cinematic visionaries that are the talk of Hollywood, such as Kingsman starring Colin Firth, Inherent Vice starring Joaquin Phoenix, Blackhat starring Chris Hemsworth, and Steven Spielberg’s, St James Place starring Tom Hanks. Then of course there is our very own South African Oscar Award winning filmmaker, Gavin Hood, who is currently in post-production with Eye in the Sky starring Helen Mirren.
So, with this fantastic line-up, the word around the cinema world is that Attendances this year will soar to levels never seen before and that is going to make a lot of cinema advertisers very happy.
Karen Bailey is general manager of Popcorn Cinema Advertising.
