MUMBAI: Exhibition of films in Italy is set to change with ANICA, the Italian audiovisual industry association, announcing that soon the weekend will begin early for film lovers when films will open nationwide on Thursday rather than Friday, this week onwards.
That means starting this week, distributors and most exhibitors have agreed to start the weekend rollout of films a day early. According to Richard Borg, ANICA president and the head of Universal Studios-Italy, the reasoning was to give a longer lead-in to the weekend that could help ticket sales on Friday and Saturday.
"We made this decision to boost ticket sales for Thursdays in a way that could contribute to growing the overall market by creating what amounts to a longer weekend," Borg said in a statement.
In addition to moving the release date forward, the plan also calls for tickets for Wednesday screenings to be sold at reduced rates.
It is not immediately clear how the new changes will impact the scheduled Italian releases for international films already on the calendar to take place on Fridays. In many cases, those releases are coordinated with releases in other countries months in advance.
The changes come as Italy‘s moribund film sector is starting to show new signs of life. After declining all year compared to the same months in 2010 and 2011, ticket sales in September were 37 percent higher than in the year ago period, with 8.3 million tickets sold compared to 6.2 million in September 2011.