New cinemas and indie hits like Knives Out help Everyman book record sales
A rapid expansion and the success of breakout indie movies like Rian Johnson’s Knives Out pushed Everyman to a record £65m revenue in 2019, the cinema chain revealed today.
The record sales, a 25 per cent jump on the previous year, were underpinned by the opening of seven new venues to take Everyman to a total of 33 cinemas across the UK.
Five that opened in the final quarter included new movie houses in London Broadgate, Manchester and Cardiff, to take the company’s total number of screens to 110.
Everyman saw its slim market share rise to 3.1 per cent from 2.5 per cent in 2018 as a result.
The high-end chain, which allows people to order food and drinks from plush sofas before a movie begins, has committed to opening another 12 venues by 2022. Four will open this year, including Dublin and London Kings Road.
“The vast majority of our growth is coming from our expansion and that is going very well,” chief executive Crispin Lilly told City PM
He added that 3.2m customers visited Everyman’s screens over the year, “which is phenomenal compared to where we were five years ago”.
The divisive Joker and Elton John biopic Rocketman pulled in the crowds, but Lilly said Everyman’s indie sensibility meant it also benefited from smaller releases like Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and whodunit Knives Out.
“Knives Out has been an old school sleeper hit,” Lilly said of the Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery. “People didn’t have high expectations and people didn’t know what it was about but it has been a fantastic hit and it’s still sticking around now.”
He added: “On the top end, 1917 is going great guns and doing great business across the multiplexes and then Little Women is doing really well. Uncut Gems is working well for us and JoJo Rabbit similarly plays really well to our audiences.”
Indie movies helped Everyman beat a UK box office decline of 1.9 per cent in 2019, and Lilly predicted a similar story for 2020, when there are fewer tentpole releases outside of the new James Bond film, No Time to Die.
“Bond and Spielberg’s West Side Story people will come out for,” he said. “But it’s the potential for all these middle sized films to find audiences with us that we’re also excited about.
“Tentpole films are important for us but when the market gets too focused on a small number of films it tends to leach the market potential of the rest of the films.”
Everyman’s share price slipped 1.4 per cent to 211p as the chain stuck to full-year expectations.