Perhaps it’s too early to say for sure if cinemagoing is back as a vital, attractive and – most important of all – burgeoning communal leisure pursuit. But the green shoots of recovery are certainly there.

That those shoots are generously flecked with pink this summer is testament to the global success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which opened in late July and by last weekend had taken over a billion dollars at the box office.

Ker-ching, as they say at Warner Bros., the studio behind the smash hit.

But there are other films racking up numbers almost as impressive. Though well behind Barbie in the table, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has a still healthy global total box office take of £432 million and has been stitched together with Barbie, Frankenstein style, to create a portmanteau word for critics and market analysts: Barbenheimer. If you haven’t heard the term, where have you been?

Last weekend’s big opener was Meg 2: The Trench (Jason Statham versus a very large shark, what’s not to like?). It hauled in £111 million in its first three days. Meanwhile the global weekend take for the other seven films in the box office top 10 at the start of this month surpassed £391 million. That’s a lot of bums on a lot of seats.

The Herald: A scene from Meg 2: The Trench, starring Jason StathamA scene from Meg 2: The Trench, starring Jason Statham (Image: Warner Bros.)

On June 30 the trade association representing cinema operators across 39 European published its latest annual report. The data from the International Union of Cinemas (UNIC) doesn’t include the Barbenheimer bump, but even so it appears to show a picture of rosy-cheeked good health for the sector.

In his introduction, UNIC president and UK Cinema Association head Phil Clapp hailed a 62% rise in cinema admissions in 2022 across the EU and UK, and a 68% rise in box office takings. That accounted for revenue in excess of £4.3 billion.

To his mind, it indicates “a step-change in the recovery of the European cinema industry” which sends “a clear signal of the desire of audiences to return to the Big Screen when presented with a strong and diverse film offer … allowing cinemas to re-affirm their cultural and social significance within local communities.”

In the UK, admissions were up 58% across 4637 screens, and box office takings rose 61% to £902 million. The average price of a cinema ticket in the UK is £7.69, the highest it has ever been, but still not bad value for two or three hours of entertainment.

The use of social media platforms as a means of self-promotion, for curating self-image and for sharing experiences has brought an element of theatre to the multiplexes and that has helped too. Barbie attracted audiences dressed head-to-toe in pink, and those who were also intent on seeing Oppenheimer as part of a Barbenheimer double bill would then change into black for Nolan’s film. Or the other way round if, like one male reviewer, you think Barbie works best as the dessert.

The Herald: Margot Robbie at a Barbie fan event in Seoul, South KoreaMargot Robbie at a Barbie fan event in Seoul, South Korea (Image: Warner Bros.)

Tom Cruise, whose latest Mission Impossible film was in multiplexes at the time, did this double bill. History doesn’t record in what order he undertook it, sadly. 

In fact the dressing-for-the-flicks trick isn’t new. Anyone who has seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show on the big screen knows that. But more recently the release of Minions: The Rise Of Gru spawned a craze for filmgoers turning up dressed in suits. The trend wasn’t without its problems – there was rowdiness, and some cinemas banned the practice – but it cements the idea in the minds of younger audiences that cinemagoing can be an event experience, rather than something to do on a rainy afternoon at the end of the school holidays.

So yes, admissions are up. Revenue is up. Sales of popcorn are up. That’s great. But this picture of health is relative. Compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic closed many cinemas and brought financial hardship to the ones which did re-open, the numbers are down.

READ MORE: CATRIONA STEWART - MY FEMINIST TAKE ON BARBIE

There’s more. The Minions movie was the third most popular film in UK cinemas last year, behind Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way Of Water (the battle of the colons?), and ahead of The Batman and the latest Doctor Strange offering. Sure, The Batman brought production spend to Scotland, but all of those films are essentially American. Homegrown films in UK cinemas in 2022 accounted for just 12% of the offering, way down on comparable figures in Germany and France.

And what about that “diverse film offer” UNIC president Phil Clapp mentioned? On July 20, the day before Barbenheimer launched, filmmaker and former Edinburgh International Film Festival director Mark Cousins tweeted: “54 Oppenheimer screenings here in Edinburgh tomorrow, 110 Barbie screenings here in Edinburgh tomorrow, 0 screenings of my Hitchcock film [My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock], the reviews of which are good.” His coda: “Missing The Filmhouse,” a reference to the capital’s much-missed arthouse cinema, which closed in October following the collapse of parent organisation the Centre for the Moving Image (CMI).

The issue here is variety, and that does matter because you need it for a properly robust exhibition sector. Consider that statement for a moment in light of the Barbie director’s favourite films.

Gerwig has reeled them off regularly over the years and on the various lists you’ll find works by French New Wave directors Eric Rohmer and Jacques Demy, English social realist Mike Leigh, and German Max Ophüls, known for his sumptuous black and white cinematography.

One constant is 1975 film Jeanne Deilman by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Ackerman, which sensationally topped Sight & Sound’s Greatest Films Ever Made poll earlier this year – but how many people queuing up to watch Barbie have even heard of Ackerman, far less seen that film?

The Herald: Barbie director Greta Gerwig on setBarbie director Greta Gerwig on set (Image: Warner Bros.)

It’s an important part of Gerwig’s artistic DNA, though, and while it’s available to watch on the BFI’s paid-for streaming service, it’s doubtful it would have had the same impact on the American had she not watched it in a cinema somewhere.

Here’s the crucial point: if you deprive young film fans of arthouse spaces where they can watch films on big screens by directors few people today have heard of – people like, say, Chantal Ackerman or Nolan favourites such as Nicolas Roeg and leftfield animation duo the Brothers Quay – then maybe you don’t get a Barbie or an Oppenheimer 10 years down the line.

When it comes to football, data shows that Scotland currently has the highest attendances per capita in Europe. Historically we have always been keen cinemagoers too. Cue flashback: the 4368-seat John Fairweather-designed Green’s Playhouse in Glasgow’s Renfield Street was the largest cinema in Europe when it opened in 1927, and Fairweather’s massive Edinburgh Playhouse wasn’t far behind. On a busy weekend of multiple screenings, tens of thousands would pour through their doors along.

We’re unlikely to return to those sorts of numbers nationally. But the outlook for cinemagoing as an activity – whether for pure entertainment or for cultural and intellectual nourishment – is looking more positive than for several years. The candle was guttering, now it is steady – and the more we nurture and cherish the light, the further it will project into the dark.

Or put it another way: Ken’s on his surfboard and riding a wave.