Venice Film Festival Reports Increase In Public Admissions And Ticket Sales As Event Passes Halfway Mark

Total admissions to theatres at this year’s Venice Film Festival have hit 114,851, up 18% on last year, according to figures published this week by the Biennale, as the film event passes the midway point.

The admissions report states that 35,496 tickets have been sold to the public, an increase of 9% from 2022, while subscription passes have also seen an increase of +17% from last year, currently sitting at 6,375.

More from Deadline

• Spirit Of Ryuichi Sakamoto Returns To Venice With Concert Film 'Opus'; Director Son Neo Sora Talks Composer's Love Of Cinema & Complex Relationship With Piano

• Woody Allen On Cancel Culture: "I Find That All So Silly. I Don't Know What It Means To Be Canceled"

• Woody Allen's 'Coup De Chance' Gets 5-Minute Ovation At Venice Film Festival, Protestors March Past Red Carpet

“The number of admission tickets sold and of total admissions to the theatres (including accreditations) testifies to the great interest that the public continues to demonstrate towards the Venice Film Festival,” the festival said in a statement accompanying the figures.

Across its first week of operations, Venice has debuted new works by David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Roman Polanski, and Woody Allen. However, the standout title of the festival so far appears to be Poor Things, the new feature by Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos.

Following its premiere, the pic received an enthusiastic ovation lasting 10 minutes and 37 seconds. At different points during the post-screening ovation, the audience could be heard chanting “Yorgos, Yorgos.”

Stars Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo were not in attendance for the debut of the Searchlight pic, owing to the SAG-AFTRA strike, but that didn’t stop the crowd inside the Sala Grande from honoring the director of a “glorious paean to freedom,” as Stephanie Bunbury called it in her Deadline review.

Based on Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name, Poor Things follows Stone as Bella Baxter, a creation of the brilliant and unorthodox scientist played by Dafoe in an echo of Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel Frankenstein. Ruffalo plays a slick and debauched lawyer. Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael, and Christopher Abbott also star.

Venice runs until Sept 9.

Best of Deadline

• Venice Film Festival 2023 Photos: Richard Linklater, 'Hit Man' & 'Day of the Fight' Premieres, Jack Huston

• Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries

• 2023 Premiere Dates For New & Returning Series On Broadcast, Cable & Streaming

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.