Nature and technology keep cinema-goers at bay

Cinema attendances dropped by seven per cent this year when compared to last year's figure of 1.1 million despite the release of several blockbusters.

KRS Film Distributors manager Alex Pace attributes this drop to a never-ending summer coupled with the option to freely rent, or buy, films that have not yet been released on the big screen.

"People were still swimming until October and it was beautiful weather until a few weeks ago, so nobody wanted to stay inside when it was balmy outside. October is usually one of our best months," he said.

Another reason was the growing trend of people ordering, off the internet, DVDs of films not yet released in local cinemas. Others were freely available from rental shops, so people were seeing the latest films at home for a fraction of the price.

"Arty films are among the worst hit because the limited audience who goes to the cinema to watch them prefer not to wait for the local release, ordering them off the internet instead," he added.

This year a total of 182 films were shown on the big screen and KRS was witnessing a trend of certain films having a shorter running time than they did five years ago. On average a film now lasts from four to five weeks, as opposed to six to seven weeks in the past.

Despite all this, KRS is optimistic that 2005 will see cinema attendances reach or even surpass last year's figures with the release of more blockbusters.

KRS believes the coming year's hits will include The Biopic Aviator starring Leonardo Di Caprio; the comedy sequel Meet The Fockers; Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith; Oceans Twelve; Steven Spielberg's sci-fi thriller War Of The Worlds and Peter Jackson's King Kong, among many others.

Delving into this year's top 10 films Mr Pace said that Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ emerged on top with a staggering 87,000 admissions in a mere seven weeks.

The film, released just before Lent, went on to place as the second best film of all time behind Titanic - it pushed Gladiator to third place.

Though The Passion Of The Christ had the best opening of all time and people thronged to the cinema for seven weeks, attendances dried up right after Easter.

Troy, the epic film starring Brad Pitt as Achilles and which was partially filmed in Malta, placed second in this year's top 10 followed by Spiderman 2 and Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King.

Mr Pace said one of this year's greatest satisfactions was seeing two animation films - Shrek 2 and Shark Tale - place among the top 10. "It is normally very difficult for one animated film to make it to the top 10 let alone two. I guess these two films, Shrek 2 in particular, entertained adults, as well as children," he said.

The film to watch at the moment is The Phantom Of The Opera, the cinematic adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's all time favourite musical.

There were a few disappointments, scattered among the joys, among them the fact that Collateral, starring Tom Cruise, and The Terminal, with Tom Hanks, failed to place among the top 10.

KRS had also expected Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to place higher than seventh place. "The problem is that Harry Potter was released in May, one of our weakest periods due to the start of the summer months and children's examinations. In the US all the blockbusters are released in May but our best period is Christmas and Easter," he said.

One satisfaction for the KRS was the feedback it received for its first international film festival which it hopes will become an annual event on the culture calendar.