French Production Reached Near Record in 2024

French production reached a second all-time record with 309 movies produced in 2024, according to an annual report unveiled by the National Film Board on Tuesday.

The 2024 production level almost matches that of 2021, when postponed shoots piled up in the aftermath of the pandemic. The number of co-productions also boomed in 2024, with 130 international movies that were minority-produced with France — the third highest level since 1952, according to the CNC. France’s leading co-production partners were Belgium with 30 films, followed by Germany with eight films.

Investment in movies reached €1.44 billion ($1.57 billion), representing a rise of 21.3% compared with pre-pandemic times. Foreign investment, certainly driven by streamers such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney, also skyrocketed by 16% to $301 million. French investment in local movies also reached 1.17 billion euros, the second largest level of the last decade.

2024 was also marked by a rise of big-budget films. While the average budget for a French movie is $4.5 million, as many as eight French movies were produced with budgets above 20 million euros. That’s two times more than the average of four movies of that caliber that were produced prior to the pandemic, from 2017 to 2019.

Pathé has undeniably played a key role in this upward trend with the adventure epic “The Count of Monte Cristo,” as did Studiocanal with the crime romance “Beating Hearts” — both of which hail from production companies owned by the European powerhouse Mediawan.

Out of those eight big-budget movies, three of them were animated features, including “Asterix: The Kingdom of Nubia,” as well as “Urban Jungle” and “High in the Clouds,” Paul McCartney’s anticipated film produced by Gaumont for Netflix.

Streamers injected a combined $83.7 million in the pre-financing of the French movies in 2024, a 59-percent year-on increase. Netflix dominates largely,…