Despicable Me sequel boosts Cineworld takings
The success of Despicable Me 2 and Les Miserables - which both took more than £40 million apiece - underpinned another strong year for cinema chain Cineworld, it revealed today, as revenue rose 13.2% to £406.1 million.
A string of sequels including Iron Man 3, Star Trek into Darkness, Fast & Furious 6, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Hunger Games: Catching Fire all helped bring in audiences totalling 51.5 million for the year.
But the cost of expansion, including the takeover of the Cinema City chain, dragged down pre-tax profits by 19.3% to £30.9 million. Cineworld was also hit by the forced sell-off of three cinemas following a Competition Commission probe in the wake of its £47m Picturehouse takeover in 2012.
Looking ahead, Cineworld chairman Anthony Bloom said: "The prospects for 2014 appear good for the enlarged Cineworld Group, but as usual will be dependent in the final analysis on the film slate for that year. Once again, there are no obvious blockbusters but the film slate as a whole is more than reasonable and should deliver another satisfactory year."
Big films for the year will be the third part of the Hobbit trilogy and the next Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay Part 1, as well as the next Captain America and X-Men episodes.
But nothing is expected to match the 2012 success of Skyfall, the most recent James Bond movie, which proved a record breaker.
The chain has also seen a boost to its takings from screening live performances of theatre plays and operas, as well as the Dr Who episode Day Of The Doctor.
Cineworld is now looking to expand further, with plans for 337 new screens in Central and Eastern Europe and 169 more in the UK, where it will open a new multiplex in Telford later this year and another 10 cinemas in 2015.
