Comments on: North American Box Office up 2% in 2008

By: Darko

Darko — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:06:49 +0000

Does that mean that the illegal download-rage hasn’t influenced the filmmarket? Good to know :)

By: Christopher Taylor

Christopher Taylor — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:09:54 +0000

Exactly, if you keep charging more for tickets, you make more off them. The truth is, the overall NUMBER of tickets was low, but the price of each was so high it can look good if you peer at them in the right sort of way. How much was inflation last year? Hint: more than 2%.

If they were as driven by money as people think, Hollywood types wouldn’t keep putting out no-sales stinkers like Lions for Lambs.

By: Doug (not Nagy)

Doug (not Nagy) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:44:00 +0000

Just wondering, when they come up with these numbers do they mention the total number of movies released during the year? Curious how that stacks up year to year.

By: Sahil

Sahil — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:27:30 +0000

Those figures don’t make any sense.

On Box Office Mojo it says that the change from 2007 to 2008 was -0.4% not 2%.

Plus it also says that the average ticket prices went up in 2008 to $7.08 from $6.88 in 2007.

So basically the theaters raised the price about 3% and they ended up making about 0.4% less than 2007.

So that would make the total about -3.5% not 2% positive.

By: K

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:12:54 +0000

Is that inflation adjusted or not? Every year there’s a new box office record, it seems to correspond to an increase in ticket price, rather than a big boom in great movies.

By: Zuke

Zuke — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:21:33 +0000

Ooops, just realized Alex said the same thing above.

Zuke < echo

By: Zuke

Zuke — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:19:45 +0000

Interesting to note the article didn’t make a big deal of the fact that the # of ticket sales were DOWN 40 MILLION.

So really, it was higher ticket prices combined with a few mega blockbuster hits – Iron Man & Dark Knight, etc. – that pulled them out of the gutter.

I hope movie execs pay attention to this trend and try to start improving the quality of movies produced instead of all the sequels & dumbed down flicks to reverse this trend (of lower tickets sold). Come to think of it, except for High School Musical, I can’t recall too many dumb teen movies made last year… hmmm.

By: Rodney

Rodney — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:04:43 +0000

Its still about money. Sure a bit few people went, but the ticket prices were higher. And we had a few impressive releases this season.

Imagine if Harry Potter HAD been released last year (2008)?

By: alex

alex — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:03:02 +0000

yeah u forget to mention that ticket sales were actually down this year. So a slight bit fewer people went to the theaters this year. It’s really not much of a difference though, about 40 million tickets.

“About 1.36 billion tickets were sold in the U.S. and Canada in 2008. That compares with a total 1.40 billion admissions in the previous year.”

By: Rodney

Rodney — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:08:16 +0000

Unfortunately Franenwolftown is not being sarcastic. His statement is accurate.

These spoof movies might be brainless piles of shit, but people go to them. When they stop making money on them, the studios will stop making them.

Vote for change with your dollar. Its the only thing Hollywood cares about. When you pay to get into Meet the Spartans, you are telling Hollywood to make more movies like this.

We paid to go see Dark Knight, and studios are now leaning superhero movies to that more dedicated style of film making with the genre.