Russia has become Europe’s biggest cinema market, overtaking France at the box office in 2017, according to a tally of 28 European Union members and 10 non-EU countries.
On Wednesday, Russian
cinemas replaced foreign films including box-office hit Avengers: Infinity War
in favor of Russian war films to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the Soviet
victory over Nazi Germany during World War II.
The Russian gross box
office soared to 53.2 billion rubles ($852 million) last year, boosted by an
“unprecedented” increase in cinema attendance at more than 212 million tickets
sold, the Strasbourg-based European Audiovisual Observatory said last
week.
