In 2006, Alliance Atlantis’ Bon Cop, Bad Cop became the all-time highest-grossing domestic film at the local box office, but overall market share for Canuck films stood below Canadian Heritage’s 5% target and Quebec’s New Wave stalled for the first time in five years.

Buoyed by the $40-million Canada/France video game adap Silent Hill and the migration of Showcase’s Trailer Park Boys to the big screen, English-language production (if you include the bilingual Bon Cop’s performance on English screens) claimed 2006’s top three spots among domestic films and accounted for 2.1% of the total Canadian box office as of Oct. 27 – its highest share since then-heritage minister Sheila Copps set her target in 2000.

While still retaining a healthy 17.6% market share, French-Canadian cinema saw a steep decline from the lofty 26.6% in 2005, when nine of the top 10 Canadian films originated in la belle province and grossed more than $1 million each.

Take away the record-setting Bon Cop, which took in $9.7 million as of Nov. 23 in French-language theaters, and the slide is even more pronounced, and perhaps indicative of shortcomings in the Quebec funding model. Telefilm Canada working groups are currently discussing ways to make Québécois cinema more self-sufficient, by stimulating more international copros and increasing the number of presales.

With no Harry Potters looming (Order of the Phoenix, the fifth installment, is slated for summer 2007), domestic market share shouldn’t take too much of a hit over the 2006 holiday season. Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm’s Roméo & Juliette, opening Dec. 15, will compete with Hollywood holdovers Casino Royale and Happy Feet as well as late-season Oscar hopefuls including the Motown musical Dreamgirls and the Will Smith tearjerker The Pursuit of Happyness.

Odeon Films’ Snow Cake and Monkey Warfare are among the final English-language releases looking to add to the total domestic box office for Canadian films, which stood at $32.2 million as of Oct. 27 and won’t match last year’s five-year high of $44.1 million.

According to the most recent statistics from Telefilm – which puts 2006’s overall box office at $698.3 million as of Oct. 27 – the tentpole triumvirate of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The Da Vinci Code and X-Men: The Last Stand finished 1-2-3 in Canada. Figures are in line with last year’s take of $711,159,579 as of Nov. 11, but won’t come within hailing distance of 2004’s monster year of $910.3 million (buoyed by Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, and The Passion of the Christ).

Bon Cop achieved another rare feat, cracking the year’s top 10 films in Canada with its $12.2 million take as of Nov. 23.