Cinema admissions flout summer sunshine to break records

May Cinema admissions have seen a marked 24% increase on the same period last year, boosted by blockbuster features such as the latest in the cult series Star Trek and Twentieth Century Fox hit X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

According to the latest figures by the Cinema Advertising Association, the films have proved so popular that audience figures totalled 15,775,945 - making May 2009 admissions the highest on record since 1969.

Star Trek became the highest grossing film of May, taking £18m, while the success of the X-Men franchise has meant that Wolverine became the second highest grossing film of May taking £15.9m.

Screenings of Angels & Demons, the anticipated prequel to Da Vinci Code, and Night at the Museum 2 helped secure cinema’s rapid growth of admissions by 16.3% year on year in the Jan-May period. Angels & Demons took £14.4m in the last two weeks of May, making it the third highest film of the month. Twentieth Century Fox’s Night at the Museum 2 enters the monthly box office at number four, taking an impressive £12.1m in May alone.

Other films to have attracted strong audience figures during the first half of 2009 included Hannah Montana- The Movie, Coraline and The Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past.