The Hollywood Reporterweighs 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.
WBTV 3 in Charlotte has Will Smith for the premiere of Seven Pounds, but first they want to tell you how the movie theater business is doing (They get the average ticket price wrong in the report; it's really $7.20. The $7.97 figure is what a $2.23 average ticket in 1977 would cost today.):
Betsy Schiffman, writing for Wired's Epicenter blog, does the digging that the Wall Street Journalneglected.
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.
The Wall Street Journal ran an article today that sets a new standard of egregious ignorance in reporting on the movie theater industry.
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.
The record 2007 box office that industry analysts warned could not be beaten considering the lack of sequels and franchises this year fell behind 2008 box office year-to-date this past weekend. Through Monday, 2008 box office stands at $4,331,304,340 - roughly $10 million ahead of 2007.
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:
2007 Film
Release Date
Opening Gross
Total Gross
2008 Film
Release Date
Live Free Or Die Hard
6/27/2007 (Wed)
$48,398,130
$134,529,403
Wall-E
Wanted
6/27/2008
Ratatouille
6/29/2007
$47,027,395
$206,445,654
Transformers
7/3/2007 (Tue)
$155,405,412
$319,246,193
Hancock
7/2/2008 (Wed)
Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix
7/11/2007 (Wed)
$139,715,157
$292,004,738
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Meet Dave
7/11/2008
Hairspray
7/20/2007
$27,476,745
$118,871,849
The Dark Knight
Mama Mia!
7/18/2008
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
7/20/2007
$34,233,750
$120,059,556
The Simpsons Movie
7/27/2007
$74,036,787
$183,135,014
Step Brothers
The X-Files: I Want to Believe
7/25/2008
The Bourne Ultimatum
8/3/2007
$69,283,690
$227,471,070
Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
8/1/2008
Rush Hour 3
8/10/2007
$49,100,158
$140,125,968
Pineapple Express
8/8/2008
Superbad
8/17/2007
$33,052,411
$121,463,226
Tropic Thunder
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
8/15/2008
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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