Cinema beyond the box office: a second life for Italian films after their cinema run
The Anica study: 25 million fewer tickets were sold compared with pre-Covid levels, but repeat viewings – including on pay-per-view platforms – are on the rise
Cinema doesn’t end when the lights go down in the cinema. It continues on the television, is streamed via subscription services, and breathes new life into films that seemed to have run their course. Judging it solely by box-office takings means calling it a day too soon. But cinemas have yet to regain a lost habit: the audience has returned, but footfall has not.
This is the dual picture painted by ‘Sala e salotto’, the study conducted by Ergo Research for ANICA and presented at MIA. Between January 2025 and June 2026, 29.6 million people went to the cinema, compared with 29.5 million during the eighteen ‘pre-pandemic’ months (January 2018–June 2019). Admission figures, however, fell from 134 million to 109 million: 25 million fewer tickets were sold, a drop of 19 per cent. Each cinema-goer buys 3.7 tickets instead of 4.5. The under-35s are driving this trend: 31 per cent of the population accounts for 56 per cent of admissions.
This is what happens in cinemas. Looking at the bigger picture, Italians watch an average of 91 films a year. Free viewings account for 62 per cent of total viewings. In an experimental survey conducted from 21 May to 17 June, 4.2 million admissions corresponded to an estimated 32.5 million complete viewings of pay-per-view films: almost eight per ticket. For Italian films, the ratio is close to nineteen. In any case, 92 per cent of paid viewings of recent Italian films relate to titles that have already been released in cinemas.
“It must be clear to everyone: films do not begin and end in cinemas,” says Lucia Borgonzoni, Undersecretary at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MIC). “Limiting one’s assessment solely to box office figures,” comments ANICA President Alessandro Usai, “is misleading: the films that perform best at the box office capture the public’s attention even beyond the cinema, demonstrating that studying consumption patterns is the key to best reaching the audiences of the future.” Cinema “is fundamental because it determines value,” says Margherita Amedei of Sky Italia. Tinny Andreatta, Vice-President for Italian Content at Netflix, points out that “70 per cent of paid views come from people who go to the cinema; there is no conflict between the two.”
In this context, Paolo Del Brocco, CEO of Rai Cinema, reiterates the shift “from a conflictual relationship between cinemas and streaming platforms to genuine convergence: the cinema remains our guiding star, but the first pay-TV window can ensure sustainability and close the financial loop for production”. For Francesco Magini of Disney+, “the cinema and the streaming service are two stages of the same journey”.
