Attendance at cinemas has dipped over the past days with the Maltese opting to watch football matches instead of a good movie.

However, cinema owners and distributors are looking forward to a summer boom, especially with 16 potential blockbusters among the 40 new films launched by KRS.

They range from animated adventure comedies to family fantasy, action sci-fi, drama, comedies and thrillers. They include Ice Age: Continental Drift (3D); The Dark Knight Rises; The Amazing Spider Man (3D); The Bourne Legacy; Total Recall; The Expendables 2; Brave (3D); Killing Them Softly and Dredd (3D).

Managing director Charles Pace said these are all expected to place well in this year’s popularity chart.

KRS hopes to continue building on the success that it has had over the past six months. In a 27-week period, KRS serviced cinemas in Malta with 88 new feature films and three re-releases. They included 18 films in 3D format.

KRS is now also able to offer local cinemas digital films with subtitles as they become available, for weekly screenings to people with impaired hearing.

Unfortunately, while the vast majority of UK cinemas will be fully digital by the first quarter of next year according to industry experts, the case is not the same for Malta.

Locally, the digital situation in the first six months of this year is no different to what it was last year: only six screens remain capable of projecting digital and 3D films.

Mr Pace said that in the past six months, 17 films ran for eight weeks or more – Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows ran for 14 weeks, while Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Safe House and Mirror Mirror all ran for 12 weeks.

In the same period, 14 films topped the local weekly box-office chart, with Marvel Avengers Assemble (3D) occupying the number one slot for five weeks. In second place was Puss In Boots (3D), which was top of the charts for three weeks.

Top 10 box office films

(December 21, 2011 – June 5, 2012)

Placing	Title	Genre
1	Marvel Avengers Assemble (3D)	Action/adventure
2	Puss In Boots (3D)	Animation/adventure
3	Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol	Action/adventure
4	Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	Action/adventure
5	Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (3D)	Action/adventure
6	The Vow	Drama/romance
7	The Hunger Games	Adventure
8	Titanic (3D)	Adventure/drama
9	War Horse	War/drama
10	Safe House	Action/crime