Betsy Schiffman, writing for Wired's Epicenter blog, does the digging that the Wall Street Journal neglected.

What is surprising is that the industry isn't showing signs of a slowdown. In fact, this may shape up to be the second consecutive record-breaking summer at the box office. To some extent, inflation helps explain the phenomenon (rising prices drives up box office grosses), but that doesn't explain strong attendance numbers.

In actually researching the story that the Journal couldn't be bothered with, Schiffman went to the trouble of contacting NATO for our reaction to the story. I link to her story not only because yours truly is extensively quoted, but because Betsy Schiffman did what reporters are paid to do: get both sides of the story.

So don't ignore the Journal article because I think it's one-sided and inaccurate. Read it. Then read the Wired post and The Reel Blog post commenting on the Journal article. Agree or dsagree, at least you'll have enough information to come to a sensible conclusion.

A commenter on the Epicenter blog notes that ticket prices in Southern California run @ $10.50. This is generally the case for an adult admission at prime movie-going times. You can go for much less at a matinee and in areas outside the big cities. The average ticket prices cited historically were derived in the same way - the $2.23 average price from 1977 ($8.03 adjusted for inflation) was not the top ticket price then,  just the average. The same kind of gap betwen the top price you would pay in 1977 and the average price existed then, too.

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Using as its jumping-off point a study by Interpret LLC, the article contends that people may be giving up movie-going in favor of staying home. The proof? Interpret asked 1,000 people, in addition to whether they are seeing more or fewr movies in theaters, 'if they had decided not to buy one of seven specific items in the last six months because of "concern over the economy," more respondents chose movie ticket than a range of options, including a car, DVD, videogame system and house.'

Comparing putting off seeing a movie because of money concerns to putting off buying a house or car? How many people were contemplating buying a house or car to begin with? People consider going to a movie weekly - if not more often.

The article retails some conventional wisdom that just doesn't hold up. "Those consumer behaviors are reflected in part at the box office, where any increases in ticket revenue in recent years have been largely attributable to higher ticket prices. Actual attendance has usually declined."

Some facts: Over 16 years, admissions declined five times and rose eleven times. Three of those years were recent. The past two years have been modest increases.

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More impressively, "Overall, ticket sales continued to outperform last summer for the fourth weekend in a row. The weekend's estimated $139 million was up 6% from the comparable weekend last year, when "Evan Almighty" led the list with an opening take of $31.2 million, according to Nielsen EDI. As a result, summer boxoffice is now running 3% ahead of last summer."

This box office performance comes without a single movie with a "3" in the title.

The comparisons for the rest of the summer remain tough:

The 2008 summer films listed represent only my guess of likely suspects for comparison to 2007. There will be the usual box office disappointments and surprises. Nobody really knows anything until the audience shows up.

What are your guesses for summer box office contenders?

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