According to the Los Angeles Times.  Which means "3D fatigue" is over and Step Up was better than Avatar.  Or something.

Tags: 3D, Avatar, Box Office, Step Up 3D

With movie theaters in the middle of an all-time record weekend in an all-time record year, the L.A. Times produces a useful round-up and look ahead at the theatrical release window:

 Exhibitors have drawn a line in the sand, steadfastly resisting the compression of release dates that they view as a threat to their livelihood. They get nervous when a studio attempts to release a movie on DVD less than 90 days after opening in theaters. Nonetheless, theater executives now are acknowledging they may need to adapt.

"We're going to protect our side of the business," said Amy Miles, chief executive of Regal Entertainment Group, the nation's largest theater circuit. But "we'd like to think that we'd work with the studios as business models evolved."

It's a delicate balancing act.

Theater operators want to be open to change without undercutting ticket sales, which have been remarkably strong. Above all, they hope the studios won't be oblivious to their concerns. "We want to know what's going to happen, and we want to have some input," said Tony Kerasotes, chief executive of Kerasotes Showplace Theatres and chairman of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners, a trade group.

For all their talk, however, studios say they're not ready to do away with windows entirely, fearing it could cannibalize their own business.

"People always say consumers want it all now, and Hollywood needs to change its business models," said Jim Gianopulos, co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment. "But I've yet to see anyone show up with a simultaneous-release model that works.

"We need to experiment and allow consumers to take advantage of new technologies and ways to experience movies conveniently."

Read the whole thing.

Tags: admissions, Box Office, movie theaters, release windows, Windows

Following up this post, Variety reports that Paramount is widening the release window on The Goods: Live Hard Sell Hard.

 In an effort to assuage exhib concerns, Paramount did agree to push back the DVD launch of Jeremy Piven laffer "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard" from Nov. 11 to late November. Had the release date stayed the same, "Live Hard" would have come out only 12½ weeks after its Aug. 24 release.

Although, Paramount did not move the disputed G.I. Joe DVD release - a skinny 88 days - it did assert that the narrow window was an exception, not a policy.

Par, besieged with calls from angry theater owners, held a number of discussions with exhibs. Studio told exhibs that "G.I. Joe's" DVD launch was timed to the release of Hasbro's corresponding toy line for the holiday season, and that it was the best thing for the franchise.

Given that DVD revenues have been down the last two years and continue down an estimated 13.9% this year, while theatrical box office has set records the last two years and is on pace to set another record this year, it isn't surprising that distributors are sending movie theater owners some love.

"I think ultimately, Paramount remains committed to separate DVD and theatrical windows, and completely committed to protecting the moviegoing theatrical experience," Paramount vice chair Rob Moore said.

Tags: Box Office, NATO, Paramount, release windows

The L.A. Times has an article in today's paper speculating as to why some big budget films are failing at the box office this summer. Fine, as far as it goes. 

Not so fine: the headline, "Summer movie season cooling off"; and the basic premise of the article.

The summer movie season is more than halfway over and a vacation season that started off hot -- "Star Trek," "The Hangover," "Up" -- has now cooled considerably. Despite the fast start to the year's ticket sales, seasonal returns are now up only 5% since May 1, compared with a year ago.

Note the cooling:

 Week          Week Gross
05/01/09    $195,511,586
05/08/09    $201,198,958
05/15/09    $194,370,510
05/22/09    $261,111,146
05/29/09    $228,989,406
06/05/09    $245,386,286
06/12/09    $210,723,390
06/19/09    $309,316,760
06/26/09    $347,733,194
07/03/09    $213,036,839
 
The current week should conclude with about $260 million total.

In other words, the Times article gets its facts wrong. It also gets its interpretation wrong and in the same paragraph. The fast start to 2009's box office came largely in comparison to a weak start to 2008 with box office up 9.4%. The seemingly smaller 5% advantage for summer 09 vs. summer 08 is purely a function of comparing this year's summer session to the second highest-grossing summer in hitory. 

It would be like comparing a straight-set 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 victory over my 79 year-old mother to a five set win over Roger Federer that went to a tie-breaker and suggesting maybe I've lost a step.

And for those keeping score at home, summer 2009 is also ahead of the record summer of 2007 by roughly 1%. Brrrr.

Tags: Box Office, fail, media, Roger Federer

NPR's Morning Edition aired a curious segment Monday morning. While audiences have been showing up in droves for the likes of Paul Blart: Mall Cop, they've apparently been immune to the aroma of freshly-popped popcorn as they head to the auditorium.

More than $4 billion has poured into the movie box office so far this year. That's up 12.5 percent from this time a year ago. Though the lagging economy has slowed sales some, Hollywood is still enjoying a good year. But that's not the case at concession stands.

Imagine my surprise. The story goes on to feature Jeff Bock from Exhibitor Relations, saying that, while box office was up strongly this year, concession sales were down as much as 10%. Now, as anyone who know theater owners can tell you, they are not exactly free and easy with revenue data on concessions, good year or bad. So, considering news this bad, I had to find out where Jeff had gotten his data. And it turns out he hadn't.  Gotten data.

He did, however, have an anecdote. He had been told by an exhibitor at ShoWest that concessions were down by the amount he had cited. A couple of other people in the industry had told him concession revenues were flat.  Where they got their data we don't know. Perhaps it was their own company's revenues. Maybe somebody had told someone who told them.

Here's where I get my data. There are five U.S. theater companies that are publicly traded, AMC, Carmike, Cinemark, Marcus and Regal (to be precise, AMC is not publicly traded, but some of its debt is) and must file quarterly statements with the SEC. There you will find, lo and behold, actual revenue figures for box office, concessions and other operations. They tell a very different story than the indifferently-sourced NPR report. The quarterly 10Q and annual 10K SEC filings can be found on the websites of each of the exhibitors named above.

For the first quarter of this year, the five companies show concession revenues up between 5.13% and 8%, which is higher than the box office increase for three of the companies. Those five companies comprise 17,000 of the 38,800 screens in the U.S. and operate in every region of the country, urban and rural. We can, I think, consider their concession numbers fairly representative of the industry as a whole.

The report also noted that box office is up 12.5% year-to-date over last year, which is also incorrect. Major news outlets have consistently gotten this number wrong all year. The real figure is 10.9%. If you account by an  "iindustry year", as Nielsen EDI does, the revenue from the first four days of this year are not counted as 2009 revenue, which leaves us 6.9% ahead of 2008.

Tags: Box Office, Concessions, NPR, sloppy sourcing

Interesting little quote from Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes:

As if crushing debt, the recession, Netflix and Redbox weren't enough, Blockbuster Inc. has a new foe: the booming box office.

That's according to Jim Keyes, chief executive of the struggling but still massive DVD rental chain, who on Thursday blamed much of his company's weak performance last quarter on the growing number of people watching movies in theaters and not their living rooms.

"We estimate nearly 3 million more people are going to the movies each week in 2009 [than 2008]," he said on a conference call with analysts. "This has been pulling traffic from Blockbuster stores."

Tags: Blockbuster, Box Office, economy, recession

Even though box office and attendance are up over last year by double digits, the Gem Theatre in Kannapolis, North Carolina is trying to ease a little of the financial pressure on its patrons by offering free admissions every Wednesday. NBC Nightly News has the story.

Tags: Box Office, economy, free movies, Gem Theatre, Marketing, recession

Big media outlets are waking up to the phenomenal box office and admissions numbers being generated so far this year.

On Sunday, the New York Times weighed in with the news that movie theaters are a bargain:

Helping feed the surge is the mix of movies, which have been more audience-friendly in recent months as the studios have tried to adjust after the lackluster sales of more somber and serious films.

As she stood in line at the 18-screen Bridge theater complex here on Thursday to buy weekend tickets for "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience," Angel Hernandez was not thinking much about escaping reality. Instead, Ms. Hernandez, a Los Angeles parking lot attendant and mother of four young girls, was focused on one very specific reality: her wallet.

Even with the movie carrying a premium price of $15 because of its 3-D effects - children's tickets typically run $9 at the Bridge - Ms. Hernandez saw the experience as a bargain.

"Spending hundreds of dollars to take them to Disneyland is ridiculous right now," she said. "For $60 and some candy money I can still be a good mom and give them a little fun."

On Monday, it was NBC Nightly News, with Brian Williams waxing lyrical about the reasonably-priced comforts of settling in to a darkened movie theater, favorite snacks in hand.

Tags: admissions, Box Office, economy, movie theaters, Movies, NBC, New York Times, recession

Box office is booming, and ABC News takes a look on the Friday before the Oscar telecast.

If you look closely, yours truly has apparently gotten a new job as spokesman for the previously unknown "National Association of Theatregoers".  Aside from the really ugly acronym (NATg), they don't exist.  We really like theatregoers, but we don't speak for them.

Tags: Box Office, economy, NATO, Oscars, recession

The Hollywood Reporter weighs in with 2008's projected box office tally from Nielsen EDI (the official keepers of the box office numbers for the MPAA and NATO) and it looks mighty sweet:

Meanwhile, buoyed by good weekday numbers and potentially strong holds over the holiday weekend, overall domestic boxoffice is poised to set a record. As of Sunday, 2008's year-to-date boxoffice stood at $9.45 billion, according to Nielsen EDI. By the close of business Sunday -- bringing down the curtain on the boxoffice year -- 2008 should surpass 2007's record haul of $9.62 billion by a couple of percentage points. 

 The final admissions tally won't be known until the end of January, when the year's average ticket price is calculated, but we expect it to be a little behind 2007.

Tags: admissions, Box Office, Movies, NATO