Small revolution to come on the market of cinematographic distribution in France. CGR’s 74 cinemas and 700 halls in France are about to be put up for sale. “Luc and Charles Raymond, the heirs of founding president Georges Raymond, have decided to hand over“, announced yesterday Jocelyn Bouyssy, the group’s general manager, to “TheBoxOfficePro“.
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CGR is the second cinema operator in France, behind Pathé-Gaumont but ahead of UGC, and the sixth in Europe. “The historical shareholders want to support us in this transition, with the will, shared by all, to find the partners most passionate about our history, who want to help us not only to keep it going, but to develop it.“, assures Jocelyn Bouyssy.
This sale comes as the film industry is put to the test by the health crisis. In 2020 and 2021, the French box office recorded 65 and 96 million admissions respectively in total, compared to 201 million and 213 million in 2018 and 2019. Added to this is the increasingly fierce competition from SVOD like Netflix and Disney+.
“Young people return to the cinema”
“We realized that young people were coming back to the cinema, perhaps more than before, and this as soon as the reopening in May with the incredible start of ‘Demon Slayer’“, reassures Jocelyn Bouyssy, however. “The older audience took longer to come back and that’s normal. They were the most vulnerable population in the face of the virus and we cannot deny the anxiety-provoking side of all health measures. And yet, sometimes all it takes is a film, the bet and the pugnacity of a single man like Kev Adams, to bring them back and reunite them with the younger generations around a comedy like ‘Retirement home’“.