1. Cinema audiences soar with 164 million admissions in Britain<br />Chris Tryhorn <br />guardian.co.uk, Sunday 8 March 2009 19.01 GMT <br />Cinema takings rose to a new high last year thanks to a bumper summer as hit films such as Mamma Mia and The Dark Knight drew strong audiences despite the onset of the recession.<br />The three months from June to August accounted for almost a third of the year's cinema visits, with 53.6m admissions making it the best summer since 1969. UK admissions rose 1.1% to 164.2m in 2008 and box office takings rose 3.7% to £854.4m, according to figures to be published later this month by the Film Distributors' Association. Mark Batey, the trade group's chief executive, said: quot;
It's a very good result that through the recession cinema, going right across the UK, has stayed buoyant.quot;
<br />He said that with the average price of a ticket at just £5 last year, a trip to the cinema made for a good-value night out. quot;
Cinema offers terrific value for two or three hours of entertainment and we have a great, varied flow of product.quot;
<br />The recession allowed distributors to trim their marketing spending thanks to the falling cost of advertising. Distributors spent a total of £305m last year bringing 531 films to market, saving £9m on 2007. In any year, no matter what the economic environment, the cinema business needs films of sufficient appeal to persuade people to pay to see them.<br />Last year's list of top-grossing films was dominated by franchises such as the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, which made £51m in the UK and Ireland. The Batman movie The Dark Knight, below, made £48.7m and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull brought in £40.2m.<br />The best-performing film of the year was the Abba-themed musical Mamma Mia, main picture, grossing £69.2m since its release in July to make it the UK's most successful film release of all time, beating 1998's Titanic. Hopes are already high for this year, with multi-Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire already making an estimated £25m. Other films likely to do well at the box office are the re-imagined Star Trek, Terminator Salvation and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Batey also said 2009 would be a quot;
watershed yearquot;
for digital 3D technology, with more than a dozen films to be released in the new format. The FDA's figures confirm that despite earlier release dates for DVDs, an abundance of films on TV and competition from other leisure activities, visiting the cinema has regained its appeal. In the nine years from 2000, cinema admissions have averaged 162.3m a year, up from 119.2m in the 1990s and just 77.5m in the 1980s.Despite the upward trend there are signs that growth is stagnating, with 2002 still the best year in modern times.<br />